


Ode to the Selfish

by unicornwarrior



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: M/M, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-05
Updated: 2015-06-21
Packaged: 2018-03-29 04:59:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 23
Words: 31,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3883198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unicornwarrior/pseuds/unicornwarrior
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the story of a boy who desperately wants to feel; and another one who feels way too much.<br/>When they meet, both their lives are turned around completely, but is it for the better or for the worse? </p><p>Disclaimer:<br/>I don’t own the characters. I mean no disrespect to Jenna Joseph or Tyler or Josh for that matter, I do not want to insult anyone by writing this. It never happened. The characters are pretty fictional as well; I basically just use their names and faces to make it easier for me to write.<br/>I also feel the need to say that most of this is not fiction – this is more or less my biography, except the story of Tyler’s parents, that is completely made up. And, well, I'm not a guy. Not gay as well. I'm in love with josh dun though. And the whole relationship thing? Yeah, that's fiction. Absolute, complete, sad, fiction.<br/>Also, there is some highly triggering content in this fic - I'm not gonna specify cause I don't want to spoiler, but if you're easily triggered, maybe you can skip this fic or contact me in some way so we can talk a little. Thank you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone!  
> So, I've been posting this story for about a week on Mibba, and I decided that it's time to move it to archiveofourown because I'm actually kind of proud of this story and there's no twenty one pilots fandom on Mibba :(  
> I really hope that the few people stumbling upon this story will like it, and leave me a comment if you want to :)  
> I'm also still very new to this site, so don't hate me if I mess up.  
> All right, loads of love & enjoy the story,  
> Mary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I know I've said this in the story description as well, but I don't want anyone to be mislead by this story.   
> It's highly triggering in some passages and even though the ending is happy (oops), I don't want people to get triggered by the serious content in some of the chapters. I don't feel comfortable putting a warning other than just 'trigger' into the tags because I think it's weird to label it like that, so I'm just going to say that some parts of this story are pretty hardcore and graphic. I do recommend skipping this story if you have issues with anxiety / depression.   
> If you still wish to read this story, maybe you can contact me in the comments so we can talk about what I mean by this thing and maybe I can even help you with your problems - just watch out, okay?   
> Take care,   
> Peace out  
> M

Tyler is a small, kind of lanky boy with limbs that don’t seem to quite fit his frame. They’re a little too long, a little too thin and a little too angry to work with the way that his face scrunches up into lovely dimples when he smiles, even though his smiles have become rare lately. He has brown eyes that look through the people in front of him; people that he hates. Or at least that he tells himself to hate. His hair is short and brown, insignificant like the rest of him. It looks like he’s shaved it off and just let it grow back in, waiting to shave it off again. Like he had a fit of emotions that urged him to grab an electrical razor and get rid of all his hair – even though Tyler tries hard to push all his emotions away. 

There is an air around him that screams for all the people to disappear; that screams for everyone else to go away and leave him to himself, pretend that he’s not here. Even though he knows that despite the fact that he’s trying hard not to exist, he does. He is here, and he hates a lot of things these days. 

Tyler desperately tries not to be here. 

It’s never worked, really. 

The dark around him thickens as the morning starts to grow. Tyler isn’t even doing anything, merely staring into the black air with his eyes half-closed, his lids already starting to droop. He doesn’t know whether he is just not allowing himself to sleep or it’s that he actually can’t sleep.

Maybe it’s a little bit of both. 

Maybe it’s his mind telling himself that he shouldn’t sleep, that the night is dangerous and something is out to get him, and therefore, his body doesn’t want to sleep.

Tyler has the sudden urge to be somewhere else, be out of his skin. 

But it’s not going to happen. 

Tyler is Tyler. 

And Tyler will always remain Tyler, as much as he will try to hide and deny it.


	2. Chapter One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, while writing the first summary I forgot that I wanted to say something else.   
> I usually update on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays; regularly but in European time so for Americans, the posts could appear on a Monday or Wednesday or something.   
> I will post the first two chapter of this fic already because I've put them on Mibba, and I don't want people to go to Mibba and spoiler themselves or something.   
> So, thank you so much for reading, and enjoy the chapter :D

Tyler has to get up soon. 

Maybe he doesn’t, though. 

Maybe his sister will notice the way that his eyes are lined with heavy bags beneath them; the way that he seems to not want to get up and see the world at all. Maybe, for the first time in all their lives, she will notice that her brother is not fine, and that someone is supposed to do something about it. Maybe he will be able to stay home from school today; even though he is pretty sure that he doesn’t want that, either. 

Honestly, he neither wants to be at home where his family is giving him concerned looks nor outside where everyone is ignoring him.

But sometimes, he has to be brave and force himself into going out; going where they want him; going where he’s supposed to go. 

Madison doesn’t say anything, though. 

She merely smiles at him and gets in her old beat up Golf. 

Madison, to Tyler, is a very interesting person. She has long, beautiful blond hair and her body seems like something that boys of Tyler’s age really like to think about while jacking off, and her face is almost symmetrical. She is beautiful in a way that princesses should be, and her mind is beautiful like the mind of a princess should be. Nothing but love and a warm caring nature inside her. 

So Tyler gets in his mother’s car, trying to block out the thought of another test that he probably forgot about. He’s going to fail anyway. He has long given up hope that he will ever be good at school; good at life. 

There is no way that he can concentrate on anything like this. 

“Have you slept, honey?” says his mother, and Tyler shyly nods his head. He doesn’t want for her to worry. She doesn’t deserve it. 

Tyler’s mother is an interesting woman, thinks Tyler. 

She is a math teacher at Olentangy Orange High School, a gray, ugly building that’s only a mile away from Tyler’s school. He once said that it is nice to not have to be at the same school as his mother, not only because it’s a building that looks like it doesn’t let anyone out, ever, but also because he has seen the school bullies teasing a freshman boy whose mother is the guidance counselor at their school. 

Tyler’s mother has brown hair, with slight silver streaks weaving through them like diamonds. On her, it doesn’t look old, merely beautiful and for some reason, wise. Tyler thinks that his mother is the wisest person on earth. She has raised four children of her own, basically, with little support from her ex-husband who lives three states away with a ditsy blonde that gets everything she wants in the blink of an eye. 

Tyler’s mother is barely fifty years old, but something about her seems much older. From a very young age on, she’s told Tyler a lot of things, things he would’ve liked to understand. Like ‘you should love everyone else as much as you expect to be loved’. When he thinks of those words now, he always tries to question them and put them into perspective, and they have stopped making much sense. 

If Tyler does not want to be loved, can he just hate people? 

Tyler’s mother also has beautiful green eyes that pierce through him like she sees straight through every lie that he tells her. He knows that every time he claims that he is fine, she knows that he is not, but something that lies beyond his understanding makes her want to leave him to deal with his issues alone – his mother treats him like an adult.

He likes to think that it is a little selfish of her to do things like that; he likes to be the one calling the other people selfish even though he knows that he is the most selfish one of them all.

If there is one thing that Tyler doesn’t want to be, and has always been afraid of being, it’s selfish. He hates selfishness with a burning passion. He know that he is, though.

His siblings are all a little afraid of him.

Every time he walks into a room, they exchange thorough looks that make him feel like something is wrong with him. He always looks in the mirror and wonders if there’s something stuck between his teeth or a gigantic zit on his face, but sometimes, he faces the facts – his brothers and sister are staring like that because they think that he is strange, not something about him or his demeanor. 

Zack at least comes close to understanding what Tyler is going through on every day of his life, but Jay – Jay just doesn’t seem to want to get it. 

Tyler does not like to think about that too much. 

When his mother drops him off at his school, he presses a swift kiss to her cheek and gets out, almost ready to face the day that’s lain out in front of him. 

When he enters the building, the certainty that lived in his steps mere heartbeats ago is gone. 

The people, they are all staring. 

Not necessarily at him, but at someone. Someone is always staring at someone and wondering what would be going through their minds at that exact moment. 

Something about high school makes Tyler beyond anxious, and it’s not the fact that he has to face people there – although that’s part of the reason. 

It’s just something that he thinks is a little too stupid to be true: You stick hundreds of kids together in a building, everything will be fine, right?

Right. 

But little does everyone else know, teenagers do have their battles to fight at times; and whereas the might not be existential like ‘grown up’ ones, they’re awful – because teenagers have to figure themselves out, not other people. 

There is this one girl; she has been heavily anorexic since their freshman year begun and her friend hasn’t done anything to help her except compliment her on the weight she’s lost. 

There is this one boy; his father has started beating him up when he was ten, so he is bitter and violent and likes to bully people because he likes to show that he has more power than smaller kids. 

There is another girl; she is the most bullied person in the whole school because she has a huge scar on her face and everyone calls her ugly. 

There is this one guy; his girlfriend that he was in love with cheated on him and he tried to kill himself, but his mother found him and he had to spend four weeks in the hospital. 

There is one more girl; she has short blond hair and gets three anxiety attacks a day because her mother pressures her into getting straight A’s. 

And another boy; whose parents died in a car crash three years ago and he cries at school every day because he carries a picture of them in a locket around his neck all the time. 

Tyler thinks that those people know what real suffering is, or is supposed to be. 

Or do they? 

Like, who does Tyler think he is trying to tell those people if they have a reason to feel like shit or if they’re just overreacting about something stupid? What gives people the right to judge other people’s problems? Who says that everyone living in a first world country has to be happy? Yeah, all those kids; they have money, they have a roof over their heads. 

But putting misery into perspective, trying to find a way to measure it, that will just not work and make people even more miserable. 

And still, people use terms like ‘overreacting’ or ‘flipping shit’ when all anyone is doing is to try and cry for help. 

He ponders on the thought maybe a little too intensely, because suddenly, he crashes into someone. 

“Watch where you’re fucking going,” the someone hisses and walks away.

For a few seconds, Tyler looks after the boy and tries to make out his misery. He looks like he is just angry that some idiot can’t watch his step, and Tyler is immediately captured. Usually, it is so easy for him to find out why a particular person is miserable, but with this guy, there’s nothing there. He’s just angry. 

Tyler brushes it off and continues his walk down the hall, seeing all the misery of this youth pass him by. There is a lot of misery in this generation. There was a lot of misery before, he knows that, but this is a different kind of misery. 

Nobody knows what to be miserable about anymore, so they make up things that could hurt them in case they ever encountered them. They make up depression, eating disorders, self-harm and other horrible things – and that is one more reason that makes Tyler hate it all. 

He genuinely thinks that being miserable makes you a shitty person; a shitty artist; a shitty everything. When you’re miserable, you try to stay in that position because that’s just how humans are built, it’s not anyone’s fault in particular. We’re just comfortable. Some people just decide that they’ve suffered and let other people suffer enough and start going about their lives, and then there’s people who merely want to lie down and not know what to do with themselves. 

Even though there is not a single part of Tyler that doesn’t want to help everyone; get them all out of their shells and help them find their way back to their lives; their lives without depression and post-traumatic stress, he tries to stay away from the misery. It’s contagious, and he doesn’t want to be as selfish as miserable people. 

He also thinks that he’s a hypocrite, because he’s miserable sometimes, too. 

A life without pain – Tyler plays with that thought a little too often. 

He arrives at his locker and drags out a big lump of books. 

He tries not to look at their faces. He tries to ignore the girl that is sitting on the floor, crying over having eaten eight hundred calories yesterday, even though no one is coming to help her. 

He merely squeezes his eyes shut and walks on, acting as if there was nothing to look at. As if the world was just fine.


	3. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading :)

The periods go by in an agonizingly slow pace; like even the time is trying to sleep now, but can’t. 

When the bell calling them for their lunches rings, Tyler slowly gets up and walks toward the cafeteria, knowing that he won’t get any of the good food today anyways. He doesn’t know why, but he’s always a little too late and he doesn’t have friends that would save him a burrito or a bunch of fries. 

So he sits down in one of the corners, next to the boy who tried to kill his little brother last year, and starts eating the sandwich that his mother packed for him this morning. It doesn’t taste like anything, really. 

Tyler likes to tell himself that this is the right way to do it. 

Not feeling anything and not expressing anything is better than crying himself to sleep every night. Even if that means that he won’t get any sleep at all. It’s a small price to pay in order to finally not feel anything; to finally be able to walk down the corridors without feeling deadly ashamed because of the misery around him that he cannot do a single thing about. 

There is so much misery in this world; in this youth. 

The people don’t bother looking at Tyler twice; he is just another weird kid in the corner of the room next to the crazy kids. Maybe they even think that he is one of the crazy kids, but since he doesn’t have some protruding characteristic that marks him as a loser, everyone leaves him alone. 

He doesn’t have any friends that would make him a target for the bullies, he doesn’t have any friends that would make him a bully, so he’s left out of everything – and it doesn’t bother him one bit. 

Tyler has never really had any friends all his life, and you can’t miss what you never had. 

He thinks that you have only one choice in your life: are you selfish or not? 

And he has asked himself this question many times; and he’s decided that he’s selfish, and it is nobody’s business whether and why he is. 

Friends are something that only selfless people can deal with, and he can’t. He has watched many people breaking over their friends and their friends’ problems and he does not have the patience to do that. 

He thinks that if everyone were to deal with their own misery in their own way, people would be a lot less miserable and everything would work just fine. He knows that it’s a horribly selfish thought – nonetheless a right and relatable one. It’s also a little complicated, he thinks. 

That is why he prefers loneliness – it’s so much easier. 

~

When Tyler’s mother picks him up after school, he looks exactly like he did in the morning. His hair is maybe a little spikier than early and his face is a lot redder because he ran from his locker out here to keep his mother from worrying because it took him longer to get out of gym class. 

It’s just another Tuesday. 

When they arrive at home, they still haven’t spoken anything besides ‘Hello’. 

Tyler’s mother does that sometimes. 

She is very intelligent in that way. 

She knows when Tyler is caught up in one of his moods and she mostly leaves him alone to ponder when he is having an episode. She knows that there’s not much she can do without making him panic or run away, and she prefers to keep him around. For some reason, she feels better when he doesn’t run into the forest for days and merely sits there, not eating, not drinking, not sleeping, just thinking. 

Tyler gets annoyed at it sometimes, because he knows it is cowardly and selfish. Sometimes he wishes that she would give a damn and watch over him a little more. 

But maybe this is her way of doing just that? 

Tyler closes his eyes. 

There is nothing to be angry at, he tells himself and tries to think of something that he likes about his mother. He likes her smile. He likes her hair. He likes her. 

His bones feel too weak right now, so he lies down and tries to sleep. 

The bed beneath his spine is almost a little too firm, piercing into his back with small needles and putting him through horrible pain when he wants to lie down to sleep – or maybe that’s just his own mind being defensive of his awake state; not wanting him to waste time. 

Nonetheless, sometimes his body wins over his mind and he falls into a rather threatening half-slumber that’s filled with sharply angular shapes and angry screams that seem to make his blood boil and freeze at the same time. 

When he awakes in the evening, his hands feel too soft for homework and his brain is a little too tired, so he decides to take a walk. 

The weather is horrible outside. 

He goes out there nonetheless, enjoying the cold wind picking at the soft skin of his face and sneaking in through his jacket. Sometimes he even enjoys the cold. 

Cold reminds him that there is actually something that he can feel, even if it’s only negative. 

The world outside isn’t doing him any good either, so he returns to his room, where he sits and stares at the wall for hours. 

His thoughts are such a chaos. He has no idea what he is even thinking about, or in what order, or what the hell it is supposed to mean. His head is running in circles, he senses himself going mildly insane because of the repetitive thoughts shooting at his own mind.

Therefore, he puts on the Bach CD that he’s been listening for the past few weeks.

It’s a compilation of his best works, and there is that one piece, merely a number, a piece that no one really recognizes, and Tyler has been studying it for a long time. 

He is trying to figure out what Bach was thinking when he wrote this. 

There is no regularity, no system, but it sounds great. 

Strange. 

The hours run by until the night is almost close to fading into light again, and miraculously, he falls asleep around five.


	4. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, thanks so much for reading! :)   
> I have to say, I'm kind of confused because, like, this story has a hundred hits already and it took me ages to achieve that on Mibba so, really guys, thanks so much.   
> Thanks for reading this and commenting and all that because this story means the world to me.   
> Also, if you want to check out my other stories, you can just go to Mibba, my name there is also unicornwarrior :)  
> I mean, if someone really wants me to, I can post them on here, too, but I don't think anyone cares all that much.   
> Finally, I want to thank you all again - you have no idea how much it means to me that people are reading this story; I basically poured my heart out in it.   
> So thanks.   
> Really, just...thanks.   
> Mary

When Tyler wakes up again, he feels as though he does not quite belong into his skin anymore. Not like he is in pain or like he can’t move anymore, but in a way where he feels just a little too small for the muscles and the joints. Like something is wrong; out of place; a little off. As much as he tries, he simply cannot put a finger on it – he just feels…off. Like something happened over the night that he cannot explain to himself anymore. 

Maybe it’s the fact that he slept. 

There is something annoying in the way that his day starts. Nothing feels like it is supposed to be, but that’s become normal over the course of the past years. 

Tyler never feels like anything is right. Everything is always wrong. Everything always feels wrong. 

“Because you’re always complaining,” someone once told him. 

He thinks that is quite a nice way to put it – making something horrible because of the fact that talking about it is horrible. Tyler thinks it is dumb to say something like that. It’s not complaining if he says that he feels like something is wrong, but on the other hand, he is letting himself get too invested in his thoughts again. Sometimes, it’s stupid how seriously he takes his own problems and misery, it’s not like he has anything real to face, right? 

Right. 

When he walks down the stairs today, his sister and brothers are all sitting at the dining table with their eyes wide open. Tyler looks even more tired than usual, to be honest. The heavy bags under his eyes aren’t something that ever goes away; they always remain there, marking him as the desperate person he was, in fact. But today, his body even looks a little too big for him, yellow and wavy around the edges like Tyler has put on the wrong skin today. He feels wrong, he feels strange. 

But that is not new. 

Tyler has felt like that for a long time. 

But there are people in this world who have it way worse, right? 

Right. 

~

When his mother drops him off at school, the unfamiliar sensation has almost faded out, although something still feels off about this day. 

He starts walking down the halls and people pass by him. The guy who gets beaten up. The girl with anorexia nervosa. The girl that always looks a little too sad.

Maybe this is all just a little too stupid. 

Maybe they’re all just pretending that they’re miserable so they’ll get more attention – like he used to do it. Like his sister says he still does. 

But, a small part of Tyler’s rational brain says, there could be a reason for them to act like they’re sad. Maybe they actually are – he pushes the thought aside after mere seconds, though. 

When he arrives at his first class, he has almost forced himself back into normality, forced himself into not thinking too much. Thinking is something he only does in the safety of his own room where no one can come in and harm him. Thinking is something he does at night while everyone should be sleeping; while he should be sleeping. 

But Tyler never really sleeps. 

He thinks that sleeping is a waste of time. He prefers to do his homework at night, listen to music and ponder. And when he does not manage to defend sleep and falls into a distant half-slumber, he sees strange sorts of shadows creeping up and down the walls and into his head where they do nothing but damage. He thinks that at night, when he should be doing something else, his mind is at its most productive because he knows that no one else is doing anything right now and he is completely alone, wrapped up in the silence of the darkness, left to think his own thoughts with no one interfering. 

Tyler is a little afraid of the dark, but the old fear gives him a certain amount of reassurance as well – it makes him happy to think that something still hasn’t changed since he was a little boy. 

Getting himself caught up in his mind is something that he has always done way too much – his mother once told him that he was a very weird child, never playing with anything but just sitting in a corner and staring at the other kids, trying to take everything in and find out why they were this sad or happy or angry or why that one boy had pulled a girl’s hair. 

Of course, that wasn’t something he always did; he would play and laugh and squeak and cry like any other kid, but his mother claimed that she had seen a certain intelligence in him that was a little unusual for a child. 

To this date, he still does the aforementioned things a lot. He still very much loves to ponder. Maybe that is because he does not want to be a part of all this, maybe it’s because he wants to know what life feels like from a safe distance. It makes sense to him. It’s a pure self-preservation instinct – watch it all from afar and try not to get involved, because he might hurt himself doing that. 

Sometimes, though, he is just confused with other people his age. 

He sees girls get fucked over by guys every day, sees girls betraying their boyfriends, sees people doing things that are utterly selfish and horrible, and he watches them, for one purpose only: he wants to know why. 

He wants to know what drives people to do those selfish and egotistical things, he wants to know what in society makes the world such an utterly self-centered place, every human being watching out for themselves, only themselves, and no one else. He wants to know why he himself is such an utterly selfish creature; he believes that it cannot merely be a result of the pain that he has endured. 

Tyler has those thoughts a lot when he tries not to sleep at night. 

Tyler hates this selfish world. 

There probably is a reason to that hate, and the fact that he is selfish as well and hates himself for it; but Tyler hasn’t found it yet – or rather, he has found it but hasn’t been able to admit it to himself. 

Tyler hates that he is nothing but another selfish part of a selfish society. He hates that his self-preservation instinct keeps him from helping the crying girls, from comforting the angry guys and from understanding the yelling teachers. He hates himself for knowing all this and not making anything better; he hates himself for being that. Being the person that walks past everyone without looking and then cowardly observes them from a safer place. He knows that he is just as selfish as everyone else, but he also knows that there is nothing, absolutely nothing in this world that can make him any less selfish. 

Something about history class gives him an even stronger feeling of hate toward this world – people, those selfish fucking assholes, are even proud of what they’ve done, they’re proud of the lives they have taken, of the wars that they have brought upon the world. They feel superior because they were luckier in the wars, because they got the better colonies and made everything theirs. He hates the hypocrites that talk about the USA like they’re the worst people ever, when in fact, they’re just as bad. 

He hates the way that his history teacher proudly tells them about how exactly the Americans managed to defeat the English colonists during the Revolution. He seems proud of the Boston Tea Party. Tyler thinks that, even though the European colonists were horrible, war should never be the answer. 

He hates that the people think that the only way to make people listen is to wave an AK-47 around in front of their eyes. 

Violence just seems too senseless to him – what good does it do to take lives? 

What good does it do to inflict pain in others? 

There is probably also a reason to his deep hate of violence and all violence-connected acts, but that is another thing that he would like to keep locked up in the back of his own mind. 

He also hates that the world tells young girls that they have to be skinny and that Meghan Trainor makes them feel horrible about being skinny and that they really believe all this shit without as much as questioning it. 

He hates that fathers hit their sons in order to make them obey. He hates that they verbally abuse them to make them taste a part of the failure they have endured in their own lives. 

He hates that humanity needs violence to entertain itself. 

He hates the fact that he has to watch all this misery every day and there is literally nothing that he can do about it, there is no way to make it all any better. 

Only because he is just as selfish as everyone else. 

When the slightly enraging history lesson is over, he starts walking down the halls and he sees a boy that is not very easy to miss. It is the one he ran into the day before, and he looks different. He has a dark blue curly Mohawk and his eyes look sad while his lips smile. He is not beautiful in a way that Disney princesses are, but in a way that smoke is. Like there is something boiling and different about him, but that only makes him way more interesting. Like the way that his face scrunches up when he smiles and his eyes still look tired and ready to tear up at any moment. 

Tyler likes to watch him a lot when he laughs with his friends. 

There is a certain amount of fascination that he has started to feel toward the boy, frankly. Tyler doesn’t really know why, but the way that he manages to express two emotions with one mere face is something that intrigues him very much, and he has the sudden strange urge to walk over to him and ask what has made him so sad. 

His sister tells him that there is nothing wrong with being gay, and Tyler hates that she feels the need to tell him such things. Of course it is okay. No one is asking for the other’s permission to be gay. But his sister thinks that he is gay because he has never had a girlfriend. Not even in kindergarten, where everyone already decided whom they wanted to marry. 

Tyler is truly just not interested in the concept of love, if you ask him. It makes him angry that people make such a big deal out of it and that everyone desperately tries not to end up alone like finally sitting in silence without some selfish counterpart of you is the worst thing on earth, and it makes him angry. He hates the fact that they all put this pressure upon him. All this pressure to find ‘the one’ and to fall madly in love and want to stay with that person forever. He hates seeing girls sit in the hallways, talking about what they want their husband to be like – it’s not their decision who they end up with, after all. No one can change the way their lives go.

And he hates that every person in the world seems to be craving the touch of another person when his body is literally trying to shrink away from all contact, desperately trying to worm its way out of hugs and stay away from the strange smell that some people carry with themselves. He does not want to be kissed. And if he ever feels like he wants to, they will know. He will find someone. It is no one’s business whom he kisses. It is no one’s business whether he kisses anyone. It is no one’s business what he does; or with whom he does it, and he hates people intruding in other’s lives out of pure curiosity; and curiosity is just a well-masked kind of selfishness. 

When he gets home, his mother makes him his favorite dish because she knows that Tyler is sad. She can sense his moods like a shark smelling its prey’s blood through the water.   
In the evening, Tyler gets out the dusty keyboard that he keeps stored away underneath his desk and plugs in his earphones. Tyler likes to play keyboard during the night, but he does not want people to hear what he plays. His music belongs to him. He thinks that it’s a nice melody that he is working on right now, but it feels a little dry. A little boring. A little like early Mozart. Part of him wants to ask his family what they think of what he has composed, but every time he considers, he ends up with the conclusion that his thoughts are his, until he decides to share them with someone, and his siblings surely are not going to be the ones that he shares them with. At least not the first ones. 

They don’t really get him. 

It’s not like Tyler doesn’t love his brothers and sister. 

He thinks that Madison is as beautiful as their mother, with her dark hair and bright blue eyes. He thinks that Zack sings well when he hums in the shower. He thinks that Jay is going to be a great basketball player one day. He also thinks that they don’t even try to get him, ever. They don’t even try to lure him out of his shell, and, quite frankly, he does not blame them for it. 

It must be hard for them to have a brother like him. It cannot be easy for them. He refrains from having the selfish thought that his siblings are supposed to try and cheer him up when he’s bad. Tyler is just as selfish as everyone else. He can’t expect his siblings to be less selfish when he’s being selfish, too. 

He does not like to think about that, though, so he drowns out the thoughts with the sounds of a melody that makes him feel the best thing on earth: 

Nothing.


	5. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the lovely comments that I recieved on the last chapter; thanks for the kudos and thanks for reading :D   
> enjoy!   
> and also, have a very nice mother's day :D

Something is still off. Tyler feels like his skin is wearing thin, like the edges of life have taken off his ability to be inside his own body. He gets up and he looks in the mirror, looks down on his body and wonders. He wonders why is face has this harsh bend around it, why his lips look so soft and pudgy in comparison, and why his eyes look like they’re sad when he’s not, he is not feeling anything. 

And then he starts getting dressed like he would on any other day, he brushes his teeth and walks downstairs where Madison is getting ready for her classes and Jay is packing his lunch for school. 

Tyler has slightly puffy eyes like he’s been crying and his heart starts beating like crazy as his sister eyes him up and down, followed by her usual question of how he is. She knows that he will answer ‘fine’ and mean ‘horrible’. She has given up trying to get the truth out of him ages ago; and he kind of wishes that she would still care. He wonders, for a very small second, if it is selfish of him to want that.

At school, there no difference to any other day. The anorexic girl is leaning against the wall next to the bulimic girl, talking about the best dieting techniques. The guy with the scars all over his arms is dully looking at a math book like he wants the ground to swallow him whole. The boy with the dead parents is sitting in the corner of the room, reading a book and looking like he is about to cry. 

The blue-haired boy is leaning against a wall, chatting and laughing with his friends, his expression unreadable.   
Tyler thinks this is horrible. 

A boy walks past, loudly talking to his friend about how people who self-harm are the worst people ever. 

Tyler wants to pick up a razor blade. 

Tyler wants to feel angry at him for making the boy with the scars cry and lust for the chill of the blade. 

At lunch time, Tyler walks out of the school building and sits down on the back yard where only few other students are, passing their time by idly smoking cigarettes and chatting; talking like they’ve known each other for ages. A mean part of Tyler wishes that he were a part of their circle, that he had friends he could trust in. 

He has some distant memory of some little boy in elementary school whom he liked very much, and he remembers that their friendship ceased to exist when it was time for them to go to junior high and the other boy was starting to become more and more popular until he considered himself to cool to even say ‘hello’ to Tyler when passing him in the hallways. 

A bigger part of his brain that reminds him that no, people will always remain people and for him, it is better to watch everything from afar, where the possibility to get hurt is kept at a minimum. Where he doesn’t have to deal with the fact that there’s nothing that he can do to make his potential friends less miserable.

Suddenly though, something catches Tyler’s eye. It is the boy with the blue Mohawk again, he’s leaning against the ledge that divides the yard and the sports field, and he’s talking to his friends. They seem like what they’re talking about is very important, like the things they say mean something to them. Like what they’re saying is something that they wouldn’t say normally, and Tyler sees a lot of emotion rushing through the blue haired boy’s eyes; he sees small tears forming at the corners of his eyes, and he sees them gradually getting ready to spill over, fighting the boy’s strength and trying to rush out, make him weak for his friends who are looking at him like he is their prey. 

The conversation is getting more and more heated, and Tyler can make out a few yells of ‘I was supposed to trust you’ and ‘How could you do this to me’ coming from the boy. 

There’s so much emotion gathered around his face, Tyler can barely make out every piece of it. His eyes are angry, brows furrowed, but his tears are sad. There’s a bitter smile on his face, an edge of disappointment tainting it – and there’s the unreadable glare that he wears. 

Finally, the other people leave the blue haired boy behind; and he leans against the fence parting the yard from the football field. 

He is still crying. 

Something inside Tyler wants to walk up to the boy and ask him what is wrong, but the stronger and more rational part of him tells him to sit his ass down and start eating his lunch where no one can see him and he can still quietly observe them. 

He tries to remind himself that whenever he sees people start to get involved with someone else, they end up getting hurt – like this boy. 

He was clearly hurt by his friends, and they left. 

Tyler doesn’t want to be the one being left alone, so he sits, selfishly, cowardly, in the shadow of the trees. 

The blue-haired boy cries for quite a while. His jaw goes slack as he watches the soccer players warm up on their field, putting on their shoes and shoving each other playfully. The envy in the boy’s eyes is something that Tyler almost misses. He is unsure why the boy would feel envy, but then he realizes – it’s the fact that they seem content with their lives, like there’s nothing that could bring them down. But Tyler knows that all of those boys have problems. 

The captain of the soccer team is questioning his sexuality when his teammates get undressed in the locker room; the vice-captain is scared that his girlfriend is leaving him; and then there’s the boy who gets beaten up at home – everybody has their issues. 

Eventually the boy stops crying though, and he starts eating his sandwich, going on with his life. 

Relieved, Tyler does the same thing.


	6. Chapter Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading and have a very lovely day :D   
> if you feel like starting a very annoyingly philosophical conversation or just tell me that I have a weird writing style, leave me a comment and really, thanks so much for the kudos and the reads and everything.   
> You all have no idea how much it means to me that people are reading and enjoying this story.   
> Peace out   
> Mary

Tyler sees the blue-haired boy cry today, too. He is still leaning against the fence and smudging his black eyeliner around his quite pretty dark eyes, and Tyler thinks that the boy is beautiful. The eyeliner suits the boy very much, though, it makes his eyes look way more catlike and smooth. He doesn’t even consider the fact that it is weird to think that another boy is pretty – it’s life, he can think that other boys are pretty, right? 

Right. 

That evening, Tyler looks at his reflection in the mirror. His nose is too small for his face and his hair sticks up at weird angles. His frame is too skinny to be considered lean, and his arms are pudgy and without definition. His body looks like it was taken from a twelve year old, and then, after someone had added a little more weight and height to it, given to him.

There is nothing in his eyes because Tyler does not feel; he hasn’t been feeling at all for more than years; decades, even. And he’s grateful that he doesn’t feel, to be honest, because Tyler doesn’t want to feel. Feelings only cause a lot of hurt, and they never have done anyone any good. So Tyler tries not to feel anything, almost breaking himself over it to a point where he wishes that there was a way to return to being emotional and a crybaby, as the others in his junior high class liked to phrase it, but there is no turning back now. Being hard and strong is better than being soft and always getting hurt at the stupidest things. 

It’s like the thing that his father always said: ‘It’s better to be a strong, real man and have a hard time getting through the day than crying about it like a girl.’

Tyler’s thighs are a little too thin. 

Tyler doesn’t think that anything is beautiful about him in a way that the smile of the blue-haired boy is and he thinks that he finally understands the anorexic girl and the bulimic girl. They only do what they tell themselves to do; they try to be as beautiful as they can. They set standards for themselves, standards of what they should look like and people think they should look like, and it’s impossible to meet those standards – and their last resort is to find strength in something that they can control; that they can have as their own little part of beauty. They force themselves into wanting to be beautiful in a way that people tell them is good until they can’t be anymore, until they can’t want to be anymore. 

And after all, nothing in the world is as beautiful as not existing. Tyler would like to not exist at times. He would like to be everything but what he is right now, and he prays that someday, he’s going to find a body that he fits in, or maybe he’s going to grow into his, even though he doubts that will ever happen. He is tired of being stuck in a body that doesn’t want him and he doesn’t want, and it angers him that he is not comfortable with what he looks like. It angers him that he won’t fit in his own skin; it angers him that he wants to be everywhere but here. 

It angers him that there is absolutely nothing that he can do to be more comfortable with the way that his hair falls down in strange, messy chunks and his chest heaves ever so slightly every time that he breathes because he can’t bring himself to breathe quietly, because ever since it happened, he thinks that he has to enjoy every breath. If Tyler were able to feel, he would hate himself; hate his own face and body. 

He doesn’t even know where all those thoughts came from, to be honest, and Tyler’s rational side thinks that it is stupid to get so invested in something like that. 

It’s like there’s a constant war going on inside his head. 

It’s like his emotional, weak side is desperately trying to fight the hard, strong side; the one that his father told him that he had. He has been getting migraines quite often, but only because the fights in his own head have been becoming way too loud, and sometimes, Tyler wonders if other people have to fight their minds, too. He wonders if he is the only one waging a war against his own mind; he wonders if it is normal to have a voice of reason that is rational and motionless and good and also emotions that desperately fight the voice and try to make himself feel something that is not just indifference. 

Tyler also thinks that the boy is pretty. 

For a few seconds, he asks himself if it is wrong for him to find a boy pretty, and then he remembers what he was thinking when his sister wanted to talk to him about sex. He remembers that he is not supposed to ask for permission if he can love. He is supposed to love. 

But talking about love, Tyler feels even emptier. 

He doubts that he will ever be able to truly fall in love with someone. He just cannot picture himself with someone for the rest of his life. He can’t picture himself able to put up with someone’s mistakes and flaws on every single day and not notice them. He doesn’t believe that one is meant to meet someone and then stay with them for the rest of both their lives. Sure, maybe he has appreciated the blue haired boy as nice to look at, but that is not enough for him to want to spend the rest of his life with him. It occurs to him that his mother must have thought the same thing when her husband, a very strong-jawed man went away last year. 

Tyler knows it is selfish of him to want his father to be there when he grows up, but he also knows that it is a natural urge and it will pass as time goes on. Tyler also thinks that his parents have done it right: they married young, had four children and a beautiful marriage, they were perfect for each other. And then his mother got a haircut and his father didn’t like it, and they broke up. Tyler thinks that this is perfect. After some fighting, they both admitted that it was time for them to part ways and their children almost understood, even though Tyler is still the only one who knows that his sister cried that night, and he cried with her. They were both being selfish, but for the most part, being selfish is part of being a teenager. For some reason, though, a very strong part of him believes that it was selfish of his parents to commit to a relationship when they both knew that it was not going to last – but then on the other hand, humans are programmed to change at some point of their lives and that there is nothing that one can do to avoid drifting away from a person they ‘love’. 

Tyler thinks that love is overrated, frankly. 

He hears the anorexic girl talking to her bulimic friend one time, telling her about how she met a boy who finally makes her feel good about her body, and Tyler thinks that it’s stupid of her to say that. You can’t _make_ someone feel something, if they’re not feeling anything, they’re just not feeling anything. The world is that easy. 

On the other hand, Tyler doesn’t understand love at all. For him, it’s just an annoying word that people use far too often, especially if they don’t mean it at all. He thinks that they are stupid for overusing a word that strong. 

He also wonders what love feels like. 

Is there a way to put it? 

Because he hates thinking of things and not being able to put them into words. 

He doesn’t think that love is very strong. 

Fear, Tyler thinks, is much stronger.


	7. Chapter Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMFG OMFG 400 HITS I LOVE YOU PEOPLE REALLY THIS MEANS SO MUCH TO ME OMFG THANKSTHANKSTHANKSTHANKSTHANKS

Tyler sees the crying blue haired boy again today. His friends are not there with him, and something starts pulling at Tyler’s gut almost violently. 

It takes him quite some time to realize that it’s the guilt egging him on to walk over there and talk to him. The crybaby part of Tyler wants to ask the boy about it, comfort him, maybe make him smile a little. The strong part of Tyler thinks that it would be a stupid thing to do. 

Therefore, Tyler sits and eats his sandwich.

“Hey, fag!” someone suddenly yells, and Tyler’s head shoots up. 

It’s the soccer team captain who’s considered outing himself, and he’s laughing at the blue haired boy. 

“All alone?” 

That, though, seems to be the universe telling Tyler to do something. 

So he gets up, walks over to the boy and sits down next to him. 

He only then realizes that he has no idea what to say, so he settles for being an idiot. 

“You’re crying,” he states stiffly. 

“Tell me something I don’t know,” the boy replies with a slight smile that makes his face look even prettier. Tyler shortly contemplates telling him that, but he wipes the thought away. 

“I’m Tyler,” says Tyler, “I guess you don’t know that.” 

“I actually do,” the boy says, and Tyler raises his eyebrows questioningly. 

“We have math together.” 

Tyler nods, as if he remembers him. Truth is, in math class, Tyler doesn’t really pay attention to anything but the math. He kind of likes it, as much as other people have talked about it being a little geeky. It makes him feel good to know that there’s at least one thing on earth that is completely symmetrical, logical. There is no room for feeling and philosophy in math; there is no room for anything that makes him see anything that is not completely objective. 

“Oh,” he adds for good measure when the boy doesn’t say anything else. 

“I’m Josh,” he suddenly informs Tyler. For a second, there is awkward silence between them while Tyler ponders on what to say next, but Josh continues. “And I don’t mean to be rude, but what do you want?” 

“It’s just a question, it’s not rude to ask something,” says Tyler, a puzzled look on his face. “And I don’t know, I felt sorry for you just sitting there alone and crying.” It is a pretty lame explanation, but it’s the best thing that he can come up with right now. It’s the closest to the truth, too. 

Josh laughs for a second. “That is not something that you usually tell people,” he says. 

“Why?” 

“Because most people feel insulted when you tell them that they induce pity in you,” Josh explains, and Tyler gives him another puzzled look.

“That is stupid,” he says. 

“I know,” Josh replies, and looks down at his feet. “People like to make their idiocy seem like pride sometimes.” 

“Humanity is stupid,” says Tyler, and looks at Josh’s feet also. He doesn’t understand why Josh would purposely look at them. They’re not that interesting. 

“I know,” Josh sighs and kicks a piece of gravel away. His feet seem delicate, as if they’re not used to being a tool for destroying something. Tyler picks up the vibe that Josh is actually a very delicate person and that he’s only using a façade of makeup and gauges to hide that he is, in fact, very easy to hurt. 

Tyler thinks it’s weak of him to cry in front of people. 

“Why are you crying?” Tyler asks. 

“Because humanity is stupid,” he says with a smirk. 

For a second, their gazes interlock and they just stare. Josh has beautiful eyes, they shimmer like diamonds in the dim light of the shitty Ohio weather. Tyler thinks that Josh is beautiful. 

Is it wrong of him to think that? 

“Humanity is always stupid,” says Tyler. “You’re crying about a specific event.” 

“Touché,” says Josh, and Tyler raises his eyebrows. 

Josh sighs. 

“I told my friends that I was gay,” says Josh, “and they didn’t take it very well.” 

Tyler shakes his head disbelievingly. “It’s not their place to tell you whether it’s right or wrong,” he explains, and Josh gives him a small smile. 

“I’ve never met anyone who feels that way.” 

“I don’t _feel_ anything,” says Tyler reflexively, almost robotically. 

Josh seems to find that strange for some reason. Maybe he doesn’t like that it came that quickly; maybe he doesn’t like the way that Tyler doesn’t even have to hesitate to tell Josh that he doesn’t feel. 

“Why are you crying, then?” Tyler asks. 

“So you haven’t noticed,” says Josh, and nods silently. “You haven’t heard people calling me a faggot and throwing things at me.” 

“Of course I noticed,” says Tyler, and he wonders if Josh thinks that Tyler is stupid. 

How could he not have noticed? 

“Wha – never mind, let’s talk about something else,” Josh says suddenly. “I hate those depressing thoughts.” 

And when they sit down and start talking, Tyler doesn’t really hate the world anymore. His skin is still too big and his thighs are still too thin, but Josh seems happy even though he was crying mere minutes ago. Tyler is intrigued by that ability. 

To change feelings that quickly. 

To change feelings at all. 

To feel at all. 

Tyler hates this. 

Tyler can’t feel anything, and that’s what he hates. 

He fondly remembers the boy; the other boy, his only childhood friend. He remembers that the boy once told him that he thinks Tyler’s father is strange. 

Tyler remembers that he once felt angry when his father took away his dolls when he was a child, telling him that boys don’t play with dolls. He remembers feeling sad when he fell down the stairs in the junior high building after his childhood friend pushed him down the stairs to mask up the fact that he had talked to him. 

And then he remembers the beautiful nothing.

He remembers that one day, he woke up feeling nothing at all, and he remembers continuing on that way, unable to say anything but ‘I’m fine’ and things like that. 

Tyler isn’t even sure whether he knows how to feel. 

And he is pretty proud of that. 

Feeling is for crybabies, and Tyler is not a crybaby. 

Josh, on the other hand, seems like he feels quite a lot. He talks vividly, gesturing very widely with his hands and nodding his head and moving his eyebrows and changing from sad to angry to happy to confused – in a matter of seconds. For some reason, Josh’s smiles wake something up inside Tyler. 

They make him want to smile, too. 

If Tyler hadn’t known that Josh was doing all this to cover up the fact that he is getting worse and worse as time goes on, he would’ve thought it was pretty impressive, the way that Josh could feel anything he wanted to feel if he were to try. 

Tyler never has control over his emotions. Tyler never has emotions. 

That’s what his father always told him – that real men don’t just control their emotions, they have none. 

“And then my mom told me that-“ 

The bell suddenly interrupts Josh mid-sentence, and Tyler gets up to walk toward the school building with Josh in tow. 

“We should be friends,” says Tyler, and Josh smiles. 

“We should,” he agrees. 

And after a few moments of hesitation, he adds, “You’re interesting, Tyler.” 

With that, he disappears off into the crowds of faceless and nameless students that have to face their own misery today, leaving Tyler utterly puzzled. 

That night, Tyler almost sleeps. For a second, he wonders if it would be a good idea for him to sleep but then something in the back of his mind tells him that no, he can’t waste his precious time on earth on something so annoyingly boring. He grabs his CD player and puts in the Bach CD, even though he has most of it figured out; figured out why Bach thinks that he doesn’t need any scales or notations at all when he can have what he calls ‘art’. 

Tyler really hates Bach, because Bach is just so random; Bach composes his pieces with no system whatsoever. 

The ceiling catches the light above him, shadows rushing over it and jumping over the slight cracks. There is one crack that stretches from where his desk is stood below the window, through the entire room over to the door. Tyler thinks that his ceiling is beautiful, because it’s just like life: no matter how much energy you put into something, sooner or later, it will be shattered by the hard face of reality. 

Tyler thinks that reality is stupid, and it only wants to see the people that live on this earth burn.


	8. Chapter Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so school is kicking my arse and I have a shitload of work to do, but here's a long chapter :D   
> thanks for reading, have a very nice day and I love you all :)

It’s approaching five in the morning when Tyler finally goes to sleep, and he wakes up around noon. His mother doesn’t come in to wake him up even though his siblings complain about how she never lets them sleep in, but Tyler’s mother shuts them up with a quick look. They all know, and they like to treat Tyler like he’s weak, when in fact, they’re the weak ones. He just doesn’t feel – that is not weak, it is brave. He lets them have their moments of superiority, though, because he knows that if he doesn’t, they will get really angry at him. They get angry at him for loads of stupid reasons, so he tries to make it as hard as possible for them to be angry with him. He strongly dislikes anger; it makes him feel like the other person is capable of doing many things because they’re not in control of their minds and bodies. 

When he walks down the stairs, he can hear people talking in hushed voices, so he sits on the steps and listens, even though he knows that eavesdropping is bad. 

“He doesn’t ever do anything, Maddy,” says Jay, his voice almost…confused? Annoyed? Weirded out? “He has no friends as far as we know and he never goes out to do anything at all.” 

“This can’t be healthy,” Madison adds, and suddenly, there’s a third voice jumping in. 

“I don’t like you talking about your brother that way,” their mother says harshly, “He’s having a difficult time at school, it doesn’t matter if you think that he’s popular or not.” 

“Are you saying you’re not worried about him at all?” Jay asks. 

“Of course I am worried, but I trust him to all those things on his own. Tyler is not stupid, he’s a strong young man.” Tyler can almost hear her smiling at the next thing she says. “I believe that he will manage to get through this.” 

He is very grateful that his mother thinks of him that way – that she thinks that it is strong of him not to feel. 

He can understand why his father loved her so much for so many years; they were so very alike, it was almost scary. 

“For the love of God,” Madison throws in suddenly, “You’re just as blind as him. _This_ , whatever it is, has to stop. He needs to stop being antisocial and find some friends, this is getting too weird for me.” 

For a second, a brief feeling of something remotely unpleasant flashes through Tyler’s gut. It feels like there is a cold hand gripping his stomach and then dropping it down, leaving it to fall a few inches toward the ground and then clawing at it again. 

He doesn’t know what that is, but he pushes the thought aside. 

Because Tyler can’t even hate her for it. It doesn’t even sting. Because she’s right. He’s antisocial, and there is no denying that it will never change in the course of the next few years. Merely because he doesn’t _want_ to change; it’s so much easier for him to live this way. 

But he decides that he’s had enough and starts walking back up the stairs and to his room, where he lies down on the bed and stares up at the ceiling again. There’s another crack, just like in his life. Another crack, another scar. Another something that will not heal, that other people won’t be able to see as clearly as him even though it rids Tyler of sleep every single night. 

Tyler almost wants to fall asleep in order to block out all the thoughts that keep rushing through his head; to get rid of the memory of that awful feeling that has flashed through his body mere seconds ago. 

But his own head reminds him that it’s not a good idea to sleep; the nightmares will return. 

After a few minutes of him staring and pondering, the door opens and a smiling Madison comes in. 

He smile seems surreal, like what she is trying to say with it is completely different from what’s on her mind right now. 

“Oh good, you’re awake,” she says. For a second, Tyler forgets that she didn’t see him eavesdropping on them and almost says something. For a second, he forgets that ‘good’ is a positive adjective and that she seems like she is genuinely glad to see that he has already awoken. 

“We’re going to the mall.” 

Tyler’s heart stops. 

Maybe that’s something that shouldn’t happen at the perspective of doing things with his sister, going on an innocent shopping trip, but to him…this is terrifying. 

Tyler doesn’t like it when things don’t go like he planned them, and this weekend, he planned on staying home and going through a few Bach pieces, maybe learn a few by Leopold Mozart on his shitty piano. By no means did he expect to go somewhere, let alone the mall, where hundreds of people are crowding the smelly hallways with always-present weirdos offering you food and free things and wanting to steal your money. 

Tyler doesn’t want to leave the safety of his own room, he doesn’t want to be anywhere but here in the closed off space where he knows everything. 

Just the thought of dozens of bodies pushing against each other, their sweat mingling in the thin air, their feet trampling across each other and their minds somewhere between ‘what tee-shirt to buy’ and ‘what guy to find hot’ is making Tyler beyond anxious, and he doesn’t understand why he has to do this to himself. 

He almost goes insane when he tries to picture the day; his sister and his brother in their element, having fun together and buying new things while Tyler is sitting in a corner, desperately trying not to go crazy at the sheer volume of their voice. 

Madison’s smile is almost encouraging; almost a little like she wants to make up for the things that she said about Tyler minutes ago. 

Tyler knows that he is selfish for thinking that she’s a hypocrite, but he can’t help his thoughts – he accuses her in his head anyways. 

But he also knows that she won’t budge. 

And that’s that. Tyler doesn’t get a say in whether he wants to or doesn’t, just because his sister wants to take him out in order to forget her guilt about what she’s said earlier. Or her guilt over not being able to do anything and not really wanting or trying to do anything, just watching and waiting while Tyler is slowly destroying himself. She feels guilty for not doing shit when he is feeling horrible, she feels guilty for not coming to reassure him when she heard him crying at night after their father left. Just like his brothers feel guilty for not letting him play with them when they were younger, for always making him stay in his room when they had friends over. 

Tyler’s selfish side thinks that it is good for them to suffer, maybe they can one day even feel a tiny part of what Tyler has to endure every single day, but his rational side wants to slap him for thinking that way. 

The selfish side wins, for a few seconds, and forces the awful thoughts upon him. 

Sometimes, Tyler misses the old times. 

When his sister and her friend Kylie would be sitting in her room painting each other’s nails, Jay would be playing basketball with his friends in the garden, Zack would be playing guitar with his friend Austin. 

And Tyler would be sitting in his room, crying because his brother’s won’t let him join them. 

Tyler’s mother would be talking to her other sons, trying to get them to let Tyler join them, but they wouldn’t; they don’t want to. They don’t want to have their weird brother with them; they don’t want to be abnormal in their friends’ eyes. 

Tyler would be crying, and crying, and no one would come to comfort him. 

He would be bawling his eyes out, until his father would come in. 

At the mall with his siblings and the fifty dollars that his mother gave him to ‘enjoy himself’, his brothers head straight for the sports store on the other end of the building. His sister wants to go to a little boutique because she wants new tops or something like that, so Tyler tells her that he is going to the record store to see if they have anything worth looking at. 

The music store looks like the least crowded one, so he heads straight over there, in desperate hope to be able to escape the masses of people pressing their sweaty bodies through the crowds in a pathetic attempt to ‘get there on time’, whatever their personal ‘there’ is. 

Maybe there’s another Bach CD for him to buy and decipher. Or possibly Chopin, he thinks as he walks over to the record store cramped into the corner of the wide building. Chopin is good, too. It gives him a lot of time to think. 

When he arrives, there is a ton of people occupying the room, and for a few minutes, he wonders why they are all here, until he sees the Rihanna poster on the walls. Of course. Another empty pop album that doesn’t mean anything to anyone. 

He has tried listening to that kind of music before, and all it has done to him is make him angry because of the lack of attention the artist has faced the music with. 

Tyler wants to avoid the masses of people, so he tries to sneak past them and head straight for the classical section. It’s deserted, and Tyler tries not to get angry about that. 

The CDs are stacked neatly, arranged in alphabetical order and Tyler desperately tries to find something that at least halfway gains his attention, but no such luck. 

He almost has all of those albums; and he doesn’t really want to listen to something twice because it always reminds him of the state that he was in when he would finally solve the music, and Tyler doesn’t like to remember. 

He is quickly woken up out of his thoughts when someone behind him speaks up. 

“Looking for something specific?” they ask, and Tyler turns around, a shocked screech stuck somewhere between his vocal chords and his mouth. Mere seconds later, he spots the subtle but present black eyeliner and the drooping, tired eyelids. The full lips, curled with a cheeky grin and the blue hair sweeping across their face messily. The sad eyes. The hard jaw. The strong expression. 

Josh. 

“No, thanks,” says Tyler and turns back to the CDs, not wanting to bother Josh while he is at work. 

“If you’re looking for something new, you should come with me,” says Josh and winks. Tyler almost misses the wink. There is something stupidly foreign flashing through his gut for a second. 

“Something new?” asks Tyler, incredulously. 

“New music,” Josh clarifies, “I want to show you my favorite band.” 

Tyler doesn’t object since Josh looks like he genuinely wants Tyler to know those things and to be interested in the things that he is interested in. Tyler thinks that is a great way to understand Josh more; to be more aware as to why Josh likes emotions that much. 

“Okay,” says Tyler, and follows Josh over to the dark, brooding section of the store. 

The album covers seem obnoxiously black, like they want to shove their darkness into his face and wear the sadness and anger like a badge. Tyler is not sure what to make of that. 

“This,” says Josh, “Is my favorite album.” 

Tyler nods as Josh hands him a CD. The cover is dark gray and black, with a strange drawing of people on the cover. They’re almost kissing, their mouths mere inches apart and barely touching. 

And they’re covered in blood. 

“It’s called _Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge_ ,” says Josh, and hands Tyler the album. “I’ll give you this copy for free, just try to listen to it as soon as possible.” 

“Why would you do that?” asks Tyler, skeptically. 

“Because I think it would be good for you to listen to music that you can’t overanalyze, music that you actually have to feel.” 

Tyler gulps. There’s something dark, menacing about the perspective of _feeling_ music; of actually letting it travel somewhere else than his mind. 

“Are you okay?” asks Josh, and Tyler gives a quiet nod. He does not ponder on what to make of Josh being able to tell his mood from approximately two minutes of pointless conversation and three minutes of wordlessly staring at each other. Maybe Josh is just good at reading people. 

“Sure,” adds Tyler, to make himself more believable, and neither him nor Josh believes it. 

“What’s wrong?” asks Josh, and Tyler sighs. 

“Do you really care or are you just asking to be friendly?” Tyler asks quietly, a little embarrassed to speak such words. He knows that some people would view such a question as particularly impolite, but he also knows that Josh won’t be mad at something like that. 

Josh is pretty amazing when it comes to understanding what Tyler is trying to say and not what Josh is trying to hear. 

“I really care,” Josh answers without hesitation, and that’s enough for Tyler. 

“My sister dragged me here because she thinks that I’m antisocial.” 

Josh laughs. “She’s right,” he says, “You are antisocial, but we’re going to change that now.” 

Tyler raises his eyebrows in a questioning manner. He doesn’t understand how Josh is planning to turn Tyler’s complete life around in a matter of seconds. 

“We’re friends now, remember?” Josh smiles. His smile is beautiful, thinks Tyler. 

“Right,” says Tyler. He has a friend now. It sounds weird when he thinks of it like that. For a second, he wonders what to say next, but he remembers something about how friends should not be embarrassed of what to say or do in front of each other, so he asks, “What do friends do?” 

Josh looks a little confused. “Have you never had a friend, Tyler?” he asks. 

“No.”

“Well, then…I guess we talk.” 

“But aren’t you supposed to work?” 

“I can take my lunch break now and we can go and talk somewhere a little more quiet,” he suggests, and Tyler frowns.

“Why would you do that?” 

“Because I want to spend time with you,” says Josh, and takes Tyler’s hand. Tyler feels weird when Josh takes his hand. Are boys supposed to hold each other’s hands? Is it strange for boys to hold hands? 

Tyler knows that he has seen girls hold hands before, even kissing each other on the cheek, but he’s never seen guys do that – is it not allowed? 

“Hey, Patrick!” Josh yells, “I’m taking my lunch break now.” 

“Okay, kid!” Patrick calls back. “Don’t go too far and don’t be late, or I’ll have to cut your salary.” 

He says it like he doesn’t mean it, and Tyler shakes his head. Why do people say things that they don’t mean? Why do they all lie? It feels so stupid in his head to think of the fact that people lie to each other in order to do…what? Make each other feel better? Maybe to make themselves feel better. 

People, Tyler concludes yet again, are really selfish.


	9. Chapter Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I am freaking the fuck out right now.   
> Almost 600 people are reading this fic and oh my God, thank you all so much. This story means the world to me and I am so grateful for all the reads and kudos and comments - thank you so much, really. This is basically the story that I've always wanted to write; my own life story.   
> Thank you.   
> Thank you all so much.

Josh drags Tyler off to a cafeteria where he grabs himself a tray and shovels some macaroni onto it. After he’s paid at the checkout, he searches the room for a place for them to sit, and he finds a table in the corner where no one’s really around, and Tyler thinks it is impressive how Josh can pick up his thoughts even if he hasn’t voiced them. Josh just seems to _know_ him without having to ask about stupid things. He even knows about Tyler’s completely unreasonable fear of crowded people – he doesn’t know why, he just doesn’t like being around people. 

“Why are you so quiet, Tyler?” Josh asks with a frown as he takes the first bite of his macaroni. 

“Because talking only leady to lying, which leads to being a selfish fuck,” says Tyler, an Josh smiles a little. 

“It can also lead to making friends,” Josh reminds him. 

“Yeah,” Tyler agrees, “But I’ve never had friends, and you can’t miss what you never had.” And there, there you go again. Tyler just lied for selfish reasons. He lies for selfish reasons quite often, and he is sick of it. 

“I have had one friend during elementary school,” he quickly corrects himself despite the strong urge inside his brain telling him to lie to Josh and not open up to him; it will only end in a catastrophe. 

“And why are you not friends with him anymore?” asks Josh. 

“He stopped talking to me when we got to middle school and he joined the football team. I’m not cool enough for him,” says Tyler, and it sounds a little bitter. 

“That’s a stupid thing to think,” says Josh, sighing a little. Tyler briefly considers asking if it’s him that Josh is annoyed at, but he decides against it since this didn’t seem like the kind of sigh that people like to talk about. 

“I know it is, but I don’t have any friends anyways,” says Tyler, and Josh shakes his head, a disbelieving smile on his face. 

“You have me now,” says Josh. “And I’m not going to stop talking to you to join the fucking football team.” 

Tyler even forces a little smile out of the depths of his mind. 

“Mainly because I can’t play football for shit and they would probably kill me out on the field, but whatever,” says Josh, “I think the good intentions count.” 

Tyler’s face then does something that feels very strange, but he can’t do anything to stop it – stop the way that his cheeks seem to light up and drop in with his stupid dimples and the corners of his mouth start turning upward. 

He’s not stupid, he knows that’s laughter, but it feels strange, nonetheless. 

“You have a nice smile,” says Josh. 

Tyler nods, not really knowing what to reply. 

“You’re quite interesting, Tyler,” says Josh, and continues eating silently. Tyler remembers something about Josh having said the same thing when they met in the cafeteria, so he decides to voice the question that has raised since then. 

“Is that supposed to be a compliment or an insult?” asks Tyler, and raises his eyebrows. 

“Depends on how you take it,” says Josh. “The way that I thought of it, it’s a compliment.” 

For a second, Tyler ponders. 

Pondering is something that he does quite a lot recently, as the attentive reader might have noticed. 

He also likes to think of it as ‘pondering’, not ‘thinking’ or anything like that because thinking seems like a perversely ordinary word for such a thing – Tyler is pretty sure that none of the boys his age stay up all night trying to figure out why Bach doesn’t write anything _useful_. 

However, Tyler ponders on it being strange how, just by the way that someone takes something, the meaning of a sentence can change entirely. Tyler very much hates how people try to misunderstand the things the other people say, even though they don’t want to hear the things that they want them to say. 

That’s something that Tyler really hates, too. He hates how people love to make themselves the victim of actions, because you can’t be a victim unless you let yourself be. You’re not a bullying victim, you’re being bullied, and even though that sucks and you can’t do anything about it, you don’t have to make yourself the victim of the action. Being a victim always makes you weaker than you are supposed to be. It is weird how people are in love with making themselves seem weak while saying that they’re not, while pretending that they’re strong by making themselves victims. 

Tyler hates people, generally. 

But, for the edge of a little second, he thinks that he doesn’t hate Josh, possibly. There is some sort of strange feeling toward Josh that basically plagues Tyler in his sleep, but he has no idea how to label it. 

The edge of a second is broken down when Tyler’s phone starts ringing frantically, screeching through the entire lunch room and almost throwing both of them off their seats. 

“Holy shit,” says Josh, laughing a little. “Someone must really want to talk to you.” Tyler even manages to smile a little at Josh’s goofy laugh that makes his eyes squint and his cheeks heave. 

Tyler really likes Josh’s smile, but it can’t distract him from the way that his phone is still blaring obnoxiously, so he angrily slams the phone out of his pocket and jams it to his ear, not even bothering to look at the caller ID, very likely because he knows no one outside of his family will ever call him. 

“Where are you?” a slightly angry female voice says, “You’re not in the record store.” 

“No, I’m not,” says Tyler, dumbly. 

“Where the hell are you then, Tyler?” An annoyed groan. “You can’t just disappear on me.” 

He rolls his eyes slightly, even though he feels bad for it mere seconds later. “I’m at the food court.” 

“Mom said she’d make us lunch, you idiot,” she hisses, and Josh rolls his eyes again, this time not feeling bad about it. He really hates it when his sister calls him an idiot. 

“I didn’t say that I was eating.” 

“Then what are you doing in the food court?” she asks, starting to sound slightly impatient. 

“I ran into a friend from school,” he says, only slightly laughing about the expression of disbelief that she must be wearing on the other end of the line. “And he took his lunch break to talk to me.” 

“Oh,” Madison says, dumbly. 

“Oh,” she repeats, even more dumbly. 

Tyler doesn’t bother to feel insulted by her reaction. 

“I’m coming, I need to see that for myself.” 

“Okay.” 

For a second, Tyler sits there like an idiot, long after the line has gone dead, and mindlessly stares off into distance. He doesn’t care whether his sister thinks he is antisocial, he tells himself. 

Finally, though, something inside Tyler jerks awake and causes him to shove the phone back into the depths of his pocket almost robotically and, quite frankly, a little more than slightly angry about the stupid call. 

“Who was that?” asks Josh, and Tyler shrugs. 

“My sister,” he says. 

“You don’t sound too stoked,” Josh replies, and laughs. Josh’s laugh is really beautiful. His cheeks always lighten up and his eyes squint, as if he’s just having the greatest of times laughing. 

Tyler likes that about Josh. He likes that Josh seems genuine when he laughs, but also when he cries. Josh always seems genuine when he expresses emotions. Josh doesn’t seem to feel the need to lie to Tyler about those things. 

“She’s stupid, sometimes,” says Tyler. 

“All people are stupid sometimes.” 

And Tyler nods. Josh is right. Everyone is stupid at times, even him, though he tries to be stupid as little as possible. A small part of him, though, intervenes that his sister has behaved like this for a while now and it doesn’t seem like she will stop staring at Tyler like he is a wounded deer, at least not in the near future. 

Sometimes, feelings get the better of Tyler and he hates that. Feelings make him feel weak, vulnerable. He feels vulnerable when he thinks that he would like his sister to go back to her normal self and accept the way that Tyler barely leaves his room and spends his nights thinking and analyzing instead of sleeping like he is supposed to. 

“She loves you, you know?” says Josh, as if he has read Tyler’s mind. 

Tyler doesn’t get to think of a reply, though, because Madison is nearing. 

“There you are!” she chimes in, sounding more than a little excited to see him. A little too excited, in all honesty. Just a slight bit too excited to sound genuine. 

“Here I am,” says Tyler, dumbly. 

“Hi,” she says, and gives Josh a beaming smile. “I’m Madison, Tyler’s sister.” 

“Josh,” says Josh, and gives her a warm, welcoming smile. Josh seems genuine when he smiles. Madison doesn’t. They look at each other for a few seconds, Madison seemingly assessing Josh and Josh trying to keep up the chirpy, upbeat attitude. 

“I’m really sorry, but I’m afraid I’ll have to steal Tyler away from you now, we have to get going.” 

Josh nods. “All right, bye Tyler.” He gives Tyler a small smile that looks quite private, like he doesn’t want Madison to see it. Like they’re actually friends, and Tyler feels something inside his stomach do the strange dropping thing where he feels like someone is grabbing his insides and squeezing them. 

Tyler gives Josh a short nod that doesn’t really say anything except ‘okay’, and they get out and into the car. Jay and Zack are already sitting in the driver’s and the passenger’s seat, and when Madison gets in, she stares at Tyler disbelievingly. 

“He’s cute,” she says. 

“I know,” says Tyler, and resumes to staring at his lap where his fingers are neatly threaded together. 

“Are you dating?” asks Madison, and Tyler shakes his head. 

“Do you want to be dating?” she continues to pry, and Tyler doesn’t even think before shrugging. He tries not to think about what Madison can make of a shrug in a situation like this, but strangely, she leaves him alone. 

He’s too tired to put up with her questioning looks and meaningful glances toward Jay, so he merely stares out the window, watching the trees smear past them. 

It’s a horribly cold day, even for Ohio, and the leaves are starting to turn brown. Tyler doesn’t really like autumn, because it reminds him of why he is unable to think, it reminds him of the change that he despises so much. He hates change, because change means that he has to adjust to something new and he doesn’t want to do that. Why change when he can leave everything the way that it is? 

His life is fine, he doesn’t feel the need to make it something different, Tyler thinks. 

Tyler really fucking hates change. 

The trees are getting browner and browner as they pass more and more comfortingly boring houses; Tyler’s heart starts beating at a normal rate again when they turn into their driveway. He is safe here, and he doesn’t have to deal with the masses of strangers here; here, it’s all just the way that he is used to having it. 

Tyler walks through the hall and up the stairs, straight into his room where he lays down on the bed, and he desperately tries to take off his too big and too awkward skin, even though he knows that he’ll never be able to. He’ll never be grown into his skin or shrunk into it, his mind doesn’t fit into his body.

Tyler wants to be everywhere but in his own skin, but his own skin is all he has, after all. 

He ponders for a while. 

There are no new cracks in the ceiling for him to observe, and Tyler wonders why the ceiling is unfazed by the sudden changes in Tyler’s life. Maybe the ceiling just doesn’t care. Maybe it’s not just the people that don’t give a crap about other people, maybe it’s also ceilings and walls and gummi bears. The world, after all, doesn’t care if someone goes away. And Tyler is just another part of another society that he doesn’t want to be part of, and the world doesn’t want him where he is. Not even his own skin likes him where he is, and he hates that. His skin is supposed to be his only retreat, but it’s turned into his biggest prison. 

His biggest fear is his own body. 

Not particularly what it is capable of, Tyler knows that it’s his mind that’s capable of doing the most damage, especially to himself, but his body altogether. 

Do other people feel that way, too? 

Does anyone else feel like their body is too big, or too small? 

Like they don’t fit, wherever they are? 

Like no matter what, something is always a little off? 

Like whatever they do, they’ll never be what everyone considers ‘normal’ or what people say they should be like. 

Tyler’s mother and Madison are probably talking in the living room, thinking about how he finally has a friend, the first real friend in the world, and wondering why Tyler does that. 

Tyler isn’t quite sure why he likes Josh. It’s not like he’s done anything to make Tyler like him. 

But he knows that he likes Josh. 

He really likes Josh.


	10. Chapter Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I seriously cannot thank you all enough; this is at almost seven hundred readers and it touches me incredibly that so many people have taken their time to read this.   
> I know that I've mentioned this approximately three million times, but this is a very special story to me.   
> It explains how I coped with my own problems and it's kind of a way for me to try to analyze my thought process, because from what people have been telling me, it's not that normal.   
> I just genuinely want to thank you all for being so supportive of this and taking your time to read, because that is seriously the most beautiful thing.  
> So, from the bottom of my little fangirl heart, thank you.   
> Thank you all so much.

Sundays are the most horrible days of the week. 

Every Saturday evening, Tyler is dreading sleep, dreading the clock that will eventually strike midnight and he hates it so much. He hates going to sleep on Saturday, and he hates waking up on a Sunday, because Sundays are horrible. 

Tyler is sitting on his bed and his mother is standing in front of him, asking him strange questions. 

“And you and this Josh boy, are you friends?” she asks. 

“Yes,” says Tyler, “I already told Maddy that.” 

“I know, sweetie,” says his mother, “but I wanted to ask you if you were being completely honest with her.” 

He raises his eyebrows. 

This is something that his mother has been doing quite a lot recently. She’s been treating him like he’s so fragile, so slow and so far away from the world and everything that occupies it, she thinks that he doesn’t even know what she’s talking about. 

Sometimes, he hates how people confuse uncertainty with stupidity. Or silence with depression. Or depression with feelings. 

“We’re not dating,” says Tyler, “If that’s what you’re playing at.” He feels a little strange about having spoken to his mother like that, but she merely gives him a smile. 

“I was just making sure,” she says, and Tyler nods like he understands.

“I think this is good for you,” she adds suddenly, and Tyler looks up at her uncomfortably. 

“I think that now that you finally have a friend, you will realize that not all feelings are bad.” 

Tyler cracks a slight smirk at that, but refrains from saying anything. 

“Just remember that in order to feel the nice things, you have to cope with the bad ones, too.” 

Tyler nods at her like he understands, and then he goes back to staring at the ceiling motionlessly. 

He starts thinking about Josh and his smile. 

Josh’s smile is something that, ever since Tyler has seen it for the first time, hasn’t really left his mind. Sure, he’s buried it beneath layers of piano scales and mathematical equations, but sometimes, when he feels that no one is around, he lets the back of his mind win a little and fills his inner eye with pictures of Josh’s cheeks that lift very high when he laughs and the way that his perfectly straight, white teeth flash right through his pinkish, soft-looking lips. 

For some reason, Tyler doesn’t bother contemplating whether it is good or bad for him to find another boy pretty anymore, he just likes to think about the way that Josh’s eyes light up when he has heard a statement that he might find funny, or the way that his eyes light up excitedly when he talks about the band that he wants Tyler to listen to, My Chemical Romance. 

Tyler suddenly remembers the plastic bag still sitting on his desk, so he gets up and grabs the CD, tearing the wrapping off with one swift motion and putting the disc in the player. 

The music feels very strange to Tyler. 

He is used to classical or romantic music; but not to music that has no actual artistic value, not to music that isn’t carefully composed to make the listener’s thoughts drift into the exact way the composer’s intention is set, leaving no room for debates on what it’s really about. It’s so different from what Tyler usually listens to that it takes him four times listening through the entire album to finally figure out the complicated drumming patterns and screeching guitar rhythms. 

He thinks that maybe a part of him understands what Josh loves about this album so much. 

But at much as Tyler tries to distract himself, there is no denying what day it is. 

The horrors of Sunday, for him, are not as much of a riddle as they are to other people. 

He just hates the way that the week hasn’t started and yet, it’s the shittiest moment in the world. You know that tomorrow, the new week starts and you have to go to school again, face people, face misery, and you also have nothing to distract yourself with. Of course, maybe there’s some homework to pass the time with, but everyone knows that you can only go so far occupying your mind – you will always have the threatening force of another day looming in the background of your thoughts.

Although Tyler doesn’t think that Mondays are that bad. 

But Tyler also doesn’t think that he wants to face misery. 

It pisses him off so much that he has to live in this world without being able to touch the misery around him. Everyone is miserable at some point, but sometimes you have to fall – before you fall again. 

And it angers him to no avail how people at the same time desperately try to hide their sadness, their misery, and then what they do is not hide their misery at all, they just keep it around them instead of letting it out for real and then everyone who is near to that person gets a piece of their misery. 

After all, misery is such a selfish thing. 

Whenever anyone is sad, they forget about all the other people in the world and merely wail in all their misery, desperately trying to tell themselves that misery is not something that they need to share. 

But what Tyler hates most is the lies that they tell. 

Telling other people that you’re fine when you’re not fine is the most selfish thing in the world, and Tyler really fucking hates selfishness. Tyler thinks that being sad is like being selfish – you don’t see anything but the sadness in your own eyes, and the tears blind your vision until you cannot see anything anymore.   
Life makes you unable to process misery at some point. Being miserable is not equal to being sad and being selfish, but most people don’t see any difference at all. 

Tyler hates it.   
So much. 

And he hates Sundays even more.


	11. Chapter Ten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! :D   
> thanks so very much for all the reads and kudos, I really cannot put into words how much it means to me that you're all reading this.   
> I'm really considering pulling a Blurryface and just releasing the whole thing at once because I'm so anxious to get it out, but I think this story if way more effective if you read bits and pieces here and there and then try to look at the big picture after you're done, if you know what I mean?   
> Anways, thank you all so much for your support, a big fucking-arsed thanks to Milana for being my cheerleader and bestest friend and for letting me say 'dude' and 'ydg' way too much.   
> Please enjoy this (albeit really short) chapter, and let me know what you think :)  
> Have a lovely day, I love you all,   
> Mary

Monday, to Tyler, isn’t that bad. 

At least he has a way to occupy his mind, even if it’s just by watching people go on with their life, uncaring of Tyler and what Tyler is doing. Even if he’s surrounded by the misery of the world, unable to do something about it. 

He likes watching them all. 

That’s something that he loves very much about school; it’s just a way for him to keep his mind from destroying itself. 

Watching other people, for some reason, gives him a feeling of superiority. It makes him feel good that he is able to watch over other people and decide over their lives objectively, merely observe and not form a personal relationship to anything that other kids do. 

And he’s doing all those things while knowing that no one else is watching over _him_. 

Nobody gives a damn, and he likes that. 

If he were to cry sitting on the floor in the middle of the building, no one would come to help him, and he likes that. If they came to help him, they’d probably only be doing it for selfish reasons. 

When he sees the anorexic girl comforting the bulimic girl about something that she did that made her cry, the anorexic girl always seems a little off, like she wants to be everywhere but where she is at the moment. Like all she is doing, she’s doing to make herself feel better about being a shitty friend and not to make her friend feel better. 

Tyler really very much hates this kind of hypocrisy. 

On the other hand, though, he’s a little biased. 

Seeing other people wail in their misery, it makes Tyler uncomfortable. He doesn’t like the way that they sit there, merely seeking attention and crying their eyes out in order to make someone notice their misery; misery is a selfish thing. 

Maybe this hate for miserable people origins in Tyler’s hate for his own misery; the way that his father always said he is a crybaby for being able to express his sadness. The way that he remembers the rhythmical beating; a heavy staccato; and the way that his father would yell at him to stop crying, because real men, they don’t cry. 

Except now, it’s not true anymore. 

Josh is there now. 

Josh will probably help Tyler if he sees him crying. 

Josh feels many things at once; Josh feels. Josh cries when he is sad and Josh still seems like a real man. 

Tyler is not sure whether he likes that or not. 

~

In their lunch break, Tyler sits with Josh. They’re outside, where not a lot of people are, except the few kids that smoke and the freshman boys who want to play soccer. 

Josh is mostly silent. 

He looks sad, but Tyler can’t bring himself to ask about it. He’s too selfish to ask. He is so selfish, and he doesn’t even care, let alone want to care. 

“I like you, Tyler,” Josh says at some point. “At least you’re honest and not as false as the other people that I used to hang out with.” 

Tyler, for some reason, feels like he should really ask about this; try to get Josh to find comfort in Tyler; find comfort in Tyler’s misery and feel better when Tyler pats his arm and talks to him. 

Tyler, for the first time in his life, wants to be a part of something; he wants Josh to feel better. 

Tyler smiles a little after, for a teeny tiny second, he ponders on the thought of Josh who stopped hanging out with someone who wasn’t honest. “I think I like you too, Josh.” He has dimples, and he likes to hide them because he thinks they’re ugly. He’s just as bad as the anorexic girl. “You feel.”

And Josh doesn’t ask him what that’s supposed to mean, doesn’t ask him if he’s fucking mental, he just nods and gives him another sunny smile. 

Josh’s smiles make Tyler kind of want to smile, too.


	12. Chapter Eleven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all so much for reading :D   
> I feel like anything I could say here would be repeating myself, but I just feel the need to remind every person that's reading this that I'm really grateful, and I don't take a single one of the hits for granted.   
> Thank you guys, so much.

In the morning, Tyler wakes up thinking that he doesn’t quite feel that wrong in his skin anymore. His feet still hurt and his heart is still beating madly, but he knows that something has changed, and it’s got something to do with Josh, he’s not going to lie. 

And for some reason, he’s not angry about Josh just waltzing in and changing his life. 

And he really hates himself for that. 

He despises change, he despises things that are not what he wants them to be; he fucking _hates_ not being in control of himself, his emotions, his expressions. 

He hates not being able to keep the stupid smile off his face; he hates that he can’t control his tears anymore. 

Nonetheless, he doesn’t hate Josh. 

He very much likes him, quite frankly. 

At school, Tyler even gets slightly aggravated when the steady stream of students moves too slowly for his liking, and he gets sad when one of the known school bullies calls out an openly gay boy. 

And when he sits with Josh at lunch, he suddenly becomes very happy. 

He feels like Josh is giving him part of his happiness; like the mere force of Josh’s smiles are a present to Tyler that makes him want to feel, too. 

He doesn’t really understand what makes Josh want to give him emotions, what makes him want to get Tyler to feel something. He doesn’t understand why Josh sees past all his selfishness; his sad, egotistical misery, why he doesn’t care about why Tyler doesn’t want to leave his room or why he listens to Bach so much. Why Josh is patient with Tyler in every kind of way, why Josh doesn’t want to see Tyler sad and why Josh is so fucking selfless that he can see past all of Tyler’s horribly selfish characteristics. 

When Tyler gets home after school, he sits on his bed for a while and then he turns up the stereo, listening to an album that he borrowed from Josh. It’s a very slow, very intense album and Tyler kind of hates it, even though some part of him enjoys the desperate sounding singer and the out of sync instruments in the background. It feels like they didn’t write anything down before recording, merely jammed all their thoughts into a CD and the record label let it slide. 

Tyler wonders why Josh listens to music like that. 

There’s no artistic value, it’s just noise that makes you feel something. 

For some reason, Tyler thinks that’s a very nice thing to do. Listen to something and let it in, let yourself feel what you’re listening to. 

It’s a very nice change from the Bach prelude that doesn’t seem to _want_ to make sense. 

He listens to it until it’s three AM in the morning and he’s already turned it down to a point where he can barely hear the music to not wake his sister up who’s preparing for some kind of college thing for tomorrow and needs her sleep, but then he starts looking out the window and wonders a little. 

The world outside seems far more interesting than this; the world outside seems like it will make him feel something like this album does. 

So Tyler gets up from his bed, puts on a hoodie and some sneakers and climbs through the window, his feet landing on the soft damp ground with a slight thud. It’s cold outside, but not cold enough for him to freeze and want to go back to get a jacket, so he starts walking. 

The streets are deserted; and Tyler likes that. 

He has done this a few times before, just taking a walk in the middle of the night. The silence always calms him down when the world is a little too loud. The silence seems like a nice change from the stupid Bach prelude that he doesn’t seem to understand. 

He likes the freedom of finally being alone, finally not having to worry about encountering the typical kind of misery that walks along those streets around daytime, just pondering. The way that the stars and the street lights barely throw a small circle of brightness around his feet, the way that everything seems to move a lot slower at this time of the day, Tyler thinks that’s all great and amazing. It is lovely how he can finally think without having to worry. 

He starts humming a quiet melody, drumming along to it inside the pockets of the sweatpants he didn’t bother taking off and exchanging for actual jeans – no one will see him at this time of the day. He can walk around in sweatpants without having to worry about people calling him out for it. 

Tyler walks down another street, and another, and before he realizes, he’s full on singing, quietly, but still singing. He doesn’t really care whether people hear him, whether someone wakes up and wonders who the stranger walking down the street and singing his lungs out like an absolute idiot is, he just lets his mind slip and his thoughts drift off into another dimension, and he thinks that’s great. It gives him a strange kind of satisfaction to know that he can be loud and the world will not hear it. 

In the night, everything is tired and slow and not as hectic as during the day. The moon shines more softly than the sun, and it doesn’t hurt. You don’t have to squint your eyes.

“Tyler?” a voice suddenly asks. 

It’s a very small voice, and it sounds like it comes from very far even though Tyler knows that it’s floating over from the front porch of another lovely suburban house on the other side of the street, and he knows that it only seems so distant because it’s so quiet. He recognizes the sad, cheery and angry tone nonetheless and turns to see Josh sitting on the steps and staring off into distance, his usually bright, vivid and colorful expression a little depressed and motionless, even as he sees his friend. 

Tyler is used to seeing Josh like this; Josh is not very quiet and really bad at hiding his emotions. Josh sometimes comes to school with tears streaming down his face, and the jocks make fun of him for it. They call him a faggot quite often. That, for some reason, makes Tyler very angry – no one gets to call his friend out for being the way that he is. 

“Josh,” says Tyler, softly. 

Some part of him is happy to see Josh. It is a very big part of him, and Tyler feels odd about it. He’s never known of what to make of being keen on seeing people, even when they are miserable and crying and just trying to make him uncomfortable, probably. 

“What are you doing out here at this time?” asks Tyler, and he feels a sudden frown creasing into his forehead. Something inside his head or heart or his hormones doesn’t feel too great about the worry bubbling up, waiting to emerge through his throat in a silent noise of distaste. 

“Could ask you the same thing,” replies Josh. He tries to play it off as a casual joke, but they both know that he’s merely trying to avoid the question. 

“Well, I decided to take a walk,” says Tyler, and gives Josh a smile. It’s slightly sly, and Josh smiles back. 

“And I decided to get some air before going to sleep.” Josh pats the spot next to him. “Sit down, Tyler.” It doesn’t sound like he has any other option, so Tyler does as he is told and firmly sits down next to the blue haired boy. His hair seems a little too dull though, like even it can sense that Josh is not in a good mood today, or, well, tonight. 

“Why are you trying to get out of your house?” Tyler asks, out of pure curiosity. 

Josh, at first, only replies with a nameless shrug, and resumes to staring off into distance. Tyler decides that he probably wants some time to think of a suitable answer. Or maybe making up a bearable lie. Tyler can live with both, strangely, even though he thinks that lying is the most annoying thing on earth because it just doesn’t serve a purpose other than selfishly not wanting to tell the truth because you don’t consider the other one worthy enough to handle the facts. 

“My parents are fighting again,” Josh finally says, and Tyler nods. Some part of him wants to know more, but the bigger part knows that it is not good to pry into someone’s business, that he should wait for Josh to tell him in his own time. Which, after some more staring, he does. 

“They’re ‘staying together for the kids’,” he says. “They’ve been wanting to get a divorce for more than five years, but then my mom had another baby and they decided that my little sister was worth putting up with each other.” 

Josh lets out a short laugh that doesn’t sound amused at all, it sounds bitter and cynical. Tyler doesn’t understand why Josh would laugh when he’s not happy. 

“They think that I’m worth nothing because I tried to kill myself a month ago.” 

Time stops. 

Tyler’s world suddenly stops spinning completely, and he stares at Josh like an alien. 

Josh? The happiest person alive? 

The best, most emotional, most interesting, most sensitive, most patient and most beautiful boy that Tyler knows? 

What one earth would drive this boy to kill himself, or even _want_ to?

‘Stupid,’ Tyler thinks to himself. He’s answered that question in the question itself. 

He’s so emotional. 

Josh wasn’t able to live with constantly being reminded of his own weakness; his own feelings, his own flaws. Josh probably cried himself to sleep every night. 

Josh probably still cries himself to sleep every night while his sisters and brother all have fun together and their parents talk about how proud they are of their beautiful daughters and strong sons – only that one of them is not all that strong. 

Tyler has the sudden urge to comfort Josh. 

That is why Tyler doesn’t really feel. He doesn’t like the thought of wanting to take his own life because of some hormones that his brain has put into his body. 

“So they decided not to get a divorce even though they both know that it’s already over.” Josh shrugs, as if he’s trying to pass it off as no big deal. “And they just keep fighting, and I can’t stand it anymore.” Josh looks like he is genuinely tired; just exhausted at the thought of his parents being too stubborn to give up. 

“I’m sorry, Josh,” says Tyler. He doesn’t say it because that is what you’re supposed to say in such a moment, he doesn’t say it because he wants Josh to feel any better about himself, he says it because he wants him to know that. He wants him to know that it’s not his fault that his parents are idiots, he wants him to know that he doesn’t have to be the one caught in the middle. He wants Josh to know that he shouldn’t give his parents the satisfaction of being ashamed of who he is; he wants him to know that he should just look them in the eye and tell them that he’s the bigger person; that he, at least, can let go of things that are obviously toxic for him. 

“It’s okay,” says Josh, and they remain quiet after that for a while. 

“It just feels like they prefer my sisters and brother because they’re just much more _normal_.”

Tyler feels a little strange at that. 

“I know exactly what you’re talking about,” he says honestly, and Josh looks at him with a small smile curling at the corners of his lips. 

“It is nice to know that I’m not the only one who feels that way,” he says, and Tyler nods. 

“It is,” he agrees, “It’s nice to feel like I’m not insane.” 

Tyler thinks that maybe he likes the thought of knowing that he’s not insane; that he hasn’t gone crazy over all the years of pain and torturing himself with his own thoughts. 

The both know that there are so many more things that they would like to say, so many things that they would like each other to know, but neither of the two speak a word. 

The merely look at the beautiful, soothing darkness and sit there, close, shoulders almost touching, and they finally feel like they’re where they’re supposed to be. 

Tyler is sunken deeply into his thoughts, staring at a street light several feet away that keeps flickering on and off, and for a second, he wonders if that would be a good way to explain feelings to himself. 

They’re kind of like this lamp. 

At one point, there’s way too much light, and you don’t know what to do with it, so you desperately try to push it away or shield your eyes from it. Sometimes though, the street light is off, and you don’t know what to do with yourself anymore. You’re nothing without light, nothing without feeling, and Tyler is possibly coming to realize that. 

He can’t just continue pushing his pain away. 

Even though that would make him ‘not a man’ and a ‘crybaby’. 

“My father would hate you,” says Tyler. 

Josh raises his eyebrows, as if asking a question. Tyler figures that he wants him to elaborate. 

“My father thinks that boys are not allowed to cry.” 

They fall silent again for a few minutes. 

“Is that why you don’t want to feel?” asks Josh, suddenly, and Tyler can’t help it, he just nods. There is a strange wetness crowding around his eyes, and he desperately fights to keep it in. 

“I’m a man,” says Tyler, “I shouldn’t feel.” 

Josh doesn’t have anything to say to that, and their conversation quiets down yet again. 

That, Tyler figures, is the problem: He can’t feel anymore. 

Over all the years, it’s been a simple task to keep all his emotions detached from his body like there’s not a care in the world for him, but now that Josh has entered his life and started changing things up, there’s the perspective of something different, something new. 

But does Tyler really want to feel? 

Does he want to feel hurt, the way that Josh does?

Does he not want to feel happy, like Josh does? 

“My parents got divorced a year ago,” says Tyler. “It was perfect,” he adds, to not make it seem like a sob story but because he genuinely wants to share this with Josh. 

Josh raises his eyebrows in question. “How can a divorce be perfect?” 

“They were perfect for each other. For twenty-three years. And then, they changed, times changed, and they weren’t anymore. So they did the only mature thing that there was to do and broke up, and after some issues at first, my siblings and I accepted it. It was really nice.” 

Josh lets out a short, bitter laugh. It’s a little scary. “Maybe you should tell my mom that, because she keeps going on and on about how their marriage can still be saved and that it only needs some working on.” 

Tyler shakes his head. “People are so stupid,” he says, and Josh nods in agreement. 

They fall into a silence yet again, but Tyler doesn’t have a chance to drift off into his thoughts because Josh nudges his knee with his own. 

“You’re a good friend, you know that?” he asks. 

Tyler shrugs. “I’ve never had friends, so I have no idea what to do.” 

“Which is what makes you a good friend.”

When Tyler frowns, not really understanding what he means by that, Josh laughs a little and decides to elaborate. 

“People who have many friends at some point get way too good at being a friend that they forget what it’s like to actually just spend time with someone and say the first thing that comes to mind. I think that people who have a lot of friends just want to compensate that they don’t have themselves as their friend.” 

Tyler narrows his eyes at the darkness in front of him. He doesn’t really understand where Josh is coming from. 

“You can learn how to be a good friend?”

“Yes, but you can’t learn how to be a good person, and that’s what will always separate people. There’s the good ones, and then there’s the good friends.” 

Tyler nods, even though he has no idea what Josh means by that. 

“You’re my first friend,” Tyler confesses, and Josh nods. 

“You’ve told me that before.” 

“But where are your other friends, Josh?” 

 

“They left me alone,” Josh says, and then he gets up, dusting himself off. 

“I need to go to bed,” he announces, and Tyler nods.   
“Me too,” he lies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also, I know I suck at making legitimate length chapters - the last one was 600 hundred words and this is almost 3000. I just think that it makes more sense to end a chapter when a thought ends, and this way a particularly long, thought, ydg?   
> thanks for reading anyways,   
> I love you all,   
> Mary


	13. Chapter Twelve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! :D  
> So.   
> This chapter is pretty hardcore - and a little bit of a confession.   
> I'm really sorry.

After they’ve exchanged their goodbyes, Tyler wanders around aimlessly for a little while before returning home. Frankly, he is sad that their conversation has ended so quickly and he wants Josh to be there with him again. He wants to see Josh again. Now. 

All the time. 

But he can’t, Josh has gone to bed, so he continues walking down the deserted streets until the sun starts sneaking through the gaps between houses. Until the light in the houses start switching on, until people start yawning and beginning their day with a cup of coffee and maybe a bagel with cream cheese, while Tyler is wide awake and walking through the streets. 

He uses the quiet time to think about Josh a little. 

Josh is such an interesting person to him. 

Josh can feel so many things at once, and Tyler is so impressed with having seen him laughing and crying at the same time. A weak part of Tyler wants to be able to feel so badly, and he doesn’t know how. He doesn’t understand why after all the years of forcing himself to strength, he starts being a weak crybaby again. 

He can deny, though, that the part of him that’s weak and a crybaby is starting to grow more and more protruding; his inner depth starting to surface more and more at the sight of Josh who feels. 

Feeling is supposed to be such an easy thing to do for everyone, but for Tyler, it poses the most difficult challenge ever – how does one feel? 

At first, he tries to think of people who make him feel something. 

He thinks of his mother and her beautifully gray-streaked hair, and he feels disappointment. His mother pretends that she has her life all figured out, even though everyone knows that she is just as hopeless and helpless as everyone else. Nonetheless, Tyler feels something sparkly and big when he imagines her standing in front of him. 

The same thing happens when he tries to think of Zack, Jay and Madison. He thinks about their annoying mistakes, their character flaws, and despite all that feels something warm balling up inside him. 

Even when he thinks of his father, something soft starts closing up his throat, and he almost chokes on his thoughts. The thing that he feels when he thinks of his father isn’t warm, isn’t nice, it’s hot and burning and cold and icy at the same time. 

Maybe the warm thing is love. 

When Tyler thinks of the anorexic girl at school, he maybe feels a little pity. 

But when he thinks of Josh, something warmly green and exciting spreads throughout his entire body. Everything about Josh intrigues Tyler; the way that Josh manages to be strong and daring with every word while still being able to cry, to scream, to laugh, to _feel_. Tyler thinks it is amazing how Josh can fit every emotion on the planet into his face at once, and he probably feels them, too. Josh is just something so different from the rest of the crowd of people that feels nothing and he feels a strong urge to see him again, and again, and hear him talk about music, about his feelings, about fucking anything. 

Josh, Tyler decided, makes him feel so much. 

He makes him feel fuzzy, a little warm, and very much like he should force a small smile out of himself. 

Josh, Tyler figures, is possibly the best thing that has ever happened to him. 

The most important person he tries to imagine, though, is himself. 

And when Tyler thinks of himself, the boring, dark-haired, thoughtful and anxious boy from Columbus, Ohio, he feels absolutely nothing. He doesn’t even feel hatred of even dislike for himself, he just doesn’t feel anything. He knows that his legs are a little too thin, his arms are not muscular enough, that there is a slight pudge above his belt and that his feet look strange and that his nose is too big and his lips are too pouty. 

When Tyler gets home, he’s still the same guy with the fat belly and the weird face, and he just doesn’t feel anything about that guy. 

For hours upon hours, he tries to find a way to find himself, to find out whether he hates or likes what he’s become, what Josh has made him, but he doesn’t find a single little conclusion. 

He feels nothing but utter indifference toward Tyler Joseph, the boring boy from Columbus, Ohio, and for the first time in his life, he wants to change that. 

It’s almost time to get up when a thought crosses his mind. 

The sun is flooding the room with beautifully orange light that illuminates Tyler’s features as he looks into the mirror, makes his eyes shine with a new kind of passion and makes his lips look poutier than ever. 

He quickly follows the instructions that his head gives him; clean the blade, drag it over his skin and then watch the blood trickling down. 

Blood, Tyler thinks, is kind of a beautiful thing. The way that it heavily trickles down along his ankles and drops onto the insultingly white clean bathroom tiles, leaving an ugly spot on the perfect surface. More and more blood starts rushing out of the small wound, building little bubbles and then running down his calf. He feels the pain, the beautiful, horrible pain flashing through his body as he watches the blood run further. It’s getting almost black where it surges out from under his skin, and Tyler thinks it is so beautiful. 

Tyler merely sits there for half an hour, and watches. 

He knows now. 

He hates the strange guy with the weird face and the fat belly. 

He feels the hate; he feels the distaste for everything about his own body; he fells the pain of the razor blade that rushes through his skin and cuts it like butter. 

He can feel.


	14. Chapter Thirteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMFGOMFG  
> This story just cracked 1200 hits.  
> Guys, thanks so much.  
> Seriously.  
> Thanks.

Something is different today. 

Tyler’s skin doesn’t feel too big anymore. 

Like he’s let air out with the deep cuts, and the body around him has shrunken a little. It almost fits him, and Tyler smiles when he gets out of bed after twenty satisfying minutes of sleep. 

He can feel, he thinks. 

He can feel the pain in his leg every time he puts weight on it, he can feel the disgust at what he did, and he can feel the hate that he has for his ugly, deformed body. 

He can finally feel. 

When he tells Josh that he can feel during their lunch break, Josh gives him a strange look, but smiles nonetheless. 

“And how does it feel to feel?” he asks. 

“Like shit,” replies Tyler, and laughs – a genuine laugh. 

Tyler thinks that laughing is a very strange thing – you just make noise with your throat and then widen your mouth so the teeth flash at the other person. 

But then again, laughing is something that makes him feel free; it’s so liberating, Tyler loves it. 

“You have really cute dimples,” says Josh, and Tyler can feel his cheeks heating up a little at that. 

“They’re just holes in my face,” he replies, and Josh laughs. 

“You know, you’re by far the most interesting person I’ve ever met, Tyler Joseph.” 

Tyler recalls him saying something like that when they first met and he gives him another smile, it hurts his cheeks a little. “You make me feel something,” he admits. 

“Do you know what you feel?” asks Josh. 

“No.” 

And that’s that. 

Josh tries to ask him about what he feels a few times, but Tyler merely shrugs and gives half-hearted answers that don’t really mean anything. Josh figures that Tyler is tired of talking about it and decides to give him some more space; give him what he needs; because Josh is a very sensitive person and manages to pick up all the vibes that surround Tyler and doesn’t want him to be angry or sad with him.

For some reason, Josh feels that if he had to see Tyler angry he would be very sad; even though Josh is very sad all the time. 

To Tyler, Josh has a very interesting way of showing his feelings. On one hand, he is so strong, but on then again, he is so fragile, so easy to destroy with words. 

Tyler, for very selfish reasons, doesn’t really want to have to be friends with someone who needs to lean on his shoulder in order to be okay, he wants to be the one doing the leaning, and Tyler doesn’t know whether that is because he is very selfish or because he just has no room in his head near his own problems that he has to attend, which would make him very selfish, too. 

His father always told him that crying on other people’s shoulders is something that one just doesn’t do, he is a man and he has to be strong. 

But Tyler doesn’t really want to be strong anymore. 

Tyler would like a friend whom he can lean on under any circumstances, he wants someone who makes him feel while not feeling much, and a part of him hates himself for that. 

And Josh is a very good example. 

Josh is so selfless; he puts his own problems behind everyone else’s while managing to not break over the pain of it all, he is so amazing, he is perfect in a way where no one else notices it and he deserves a medal for handling his life. Tyler thinks that Josh is probably the best person on earth; because he is selfless and miserable at the same time; he defies Tyler’s way of thinking. 

But a very big part of Tyler feels something very strong toward Josh, and for some reason, he is okay with it. 

When Tyler gets home that evening, he makes four very deep cuts and thinks of Josh in the process. 

His gut feels very warm when he thinks about Josh. 

~

His skin is almost fitting. The edges aren’t blurry anymore, they’re not that faded around the seams and they don’t want to come off as Tyler walks, talks and thinks. His thoughts are no longer dominating his demeanor; it’s his emotions, for some reason. Tyler is not sure what to think of it, but his skin; it fits. 

It fucking fits, he doesn’t have horrible pains in his neck when he gets up after even two hours of sleep. Tyler has never slept that long in the night, and for some reason, it makes him angry. Sleep is a waste of time; somewhat. 

But when he gets up, he feels a little like he belongs there; right where he is, like his skin finally works around the muscles that are a little too small, the veins that come along too strongly, the skin that is so white it’s almost see-through. Someone would maybe say that his body looks unhealthy, or even a little dead, but that doesn’t matter because he can _feel_. 

He wonders for a long time what brought him to those conclusions, and when he realizes that it’s Josh who makes him feel all that, he’s both afraid and happy. 

He’s afraid that this story will not end well for him, that he will not be able to cope with it in case Josh decides he does not want to be Tyler’s friend anymore, that he will find his way back to his old friends. 

At the same time, he’s happy that he can feel. 

And out of happiness and fright, he makes four more deep cuts, because four is an even number, and a binary one, too. 

His leg looks very pretty now. With all the blood. 

He suddenly feels the old pain in his back surging through his skin; the rhythmical hits of the belt thumping against his spine. 

Spineless, he thinks. 

He always said that he is spineless. 

“Fucking faggots,” someone spits their way, and Tyler frowns. 

“Who are they talking about?” he asks. 

“About us,” says Josh, pressing his lips together in a deliberate attempt to numb the anger bubbling up through his stomach, even though he knows that it’s no use. He wants to get up, he wants to punch the guy for saying such things just because he has his arm around Tyler, who looks like he needs his touch. 

When Josh is angry, a vein in his neck starts coming up very strongly; it almost parts the skin where it is at its thickest, and Josh’s face gets very red. 

Tyler is a little afraid of the utter rage pumping through his friend, but something inside him is also a little alert. 

Why is he doing this? 

Why would this boy, the one whose father beats him every day, call other boys ‘faggots’ just because they seem to be taking comfort in each other’s presence? 

Tyler sees girls holding hands and kissing all the time, and it makes him very angry that they get called a horrible name that is not even supposed to be an insult just because they’re boys. 

“Who the fuck do they think they are?” Tyler suddenly spits, the hot red strange feeling in his throat threatening to spill over. “I’m not going over there calling them ugly shits because of their hair.” 

And Josh does something that Tyler didn’t expect at all: he laughs. Tyler raises his eyebrows, and Josh just continues laughing. It sounds like a grunt or two slips into his silly giggles, and Tyler suddenly has to start laughing a little, too. 

“I know you don’t realize it, but you’re really funny sometimes,” says Josh, and Tyler can’t help but wonder how Josh always manages to turn negative emotions into positive ones. Tyler thinks that Josh should show him how to do that sometime. 

Josh has taught Tyler a lot of things, almost everything that he knows. 

Josh is slowly but surely teaching him how to feel.


	15. Chapter Fourteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, ehm.   
> Thank you all for reading yet again, I know I say this all the time, but I can't thank you enough.   
> I hope you like this chapter; it was one of the hardest to write and I kind of like the outcome, but that's only my opinion.   
> If anyone was wondering, I only just put in a trigger warning and I'm really sorry about that; I didn't want to put 'Self-Harm' or 'Angst' into the tags cause I feel weird labelling my story.   
> Therefore, if anyone has any questions about the story or if you're easily triggered and feeling yourself slip because of the last couple of chapters, please contact me in the comments or something (I don't think AO3 has a message function?) so we can talk about the whole thing and shit; cause really, this is NOT supposed to be promoting any of the mentioned 'disorders' (that word really makes me uncomfortable) and sometimes it can help to just talk; and I really don't want anyone misunderstanding this story.   
> Thanks again for all the reads and the kudos, those make me beyond happy and I hope you're having a great day or night :D   
> M

Tyler, for some reason, has taken a liking to Fridays. 

This Friday, Josh has asked to come over to Tyler’s house, and Tyler is not sure what to make of it. It is understandable that Josh doesn’t particularly want to invite Tyler over to his house when his parents are probably fighting again. Tyler understands why it would be the next step to their friendship and all that – but he can’t help being slightly anxious. 

What are they going to do? Are they going to talk throughout the entire afternoon? Are they going to do something? Is Tyler supposed to think of something for them to do? Is he supposed to buy extra food? Is he supposed to give Josh a tour of his house? Is he supposed to tell him about himself? Is he supposed to show him his bruises and cuts? 

Scratch that, he’s beyond anxious.

What if Josh thinks that he’s boring? What if Josh doesn’t want to be Tyler’s friend anymore when he sees the Bach CD lying on his bed? What if Josh isn’t going to like his room? What if Josh finally sees what kind of loser Tyler is and stops being his friend? 

And how the fuck is he supposed to entertain Josh during the entire afternoon? 

When Tyler walks into school that morning, his knees are shaking. 

The day goes by very quickly, a little too quickly for Tyler’s liking. 

When they are walking down the street to Tyler’s house, Tyler decides that now is the time to ask Josh about why people keep calling things like ‘fags’ or ‘gays’ after them and if it is supposed to insult him.

“Because people think that it’s weird to be gay,” says Josh. “They think it’s unnatural, and they don’t know it, so they see it as a threat.” 

“But no one said that we were gay.” 

“No, but I touched you like a gay guy would touch his boyfriend – I put my arm around you. Kids take those as a universal code to start making fun of people because they’re scared that they’ll catch the gay sickness or whatever the fuck goes on in those idiots’ heads.” 

Tyler doesn’t understand, but he leaves it at that. Josh gets very angry talking about it, and he does not want to make Josh angry. 

His usually so calm and pretty eyes light up in a way that make him seem more threatening, more looming above Tyler. Tyler is, in all honesty, a little afraid of Josh when he’s angry. Not just that Josh is scary, but he’s also scaring – there’s a difference, Tyler concludes. Josh feels so much when he is angry. A little part of Tyler is scared that maybe Josh won’t be able to control his motions anymore. Maybe Tyler is afraid that one day, he will have to feel as much at the same time as Josh does, when he is angry or sad or thinking about his parents. 

When they continue walking down the street, their conversation quiets down and fades into a fairly comfortable silence, and Tyler kind of likes it. Josh doesn’t feel the need to fill every second with empty chatter, he just walks and breathes, and, to be honest, Tyler just likes listening to Josh breathe. His breath is somewhat calming, and Tyler knows that there’s someone there, someone who won’t go away. Josh’s breath is steady, and Tyler thinks it is quite reassuring that something in Josh’s life is steady, that not everything is emotion. Josh, for some reason, is strong despite the way that he always shows any emotion that crosses his mind. He seems like an untouchable straight line that won’t budge and won’t change, even though he feels so much and lets his feelings guide him. 

When they reach the doorstep of Tyler’s home, Josh smiles and motions for him to unlock the door. Tyler does so, and almost runs into Madison and Zack who are awkwardly standing in the hall, apparently waiting for them to return. Tyler’s eyes are just quick enough to see Zack slam a twenty dollar bill into Madison’s hand with a grumpy expression.

“Hey,” says Josh, and Tyler gives his brother and sister a wary look. 

Zack puts on his most charming smile. “Hi, I’m Zack.” 

Tyler rolls his eyes, but smiles fondly. He stops smiling immediately when he realizes what he just did – he is supposed to walk past his family and into his room where he can sit in the quiet environment for a while until he starts knocking on his piano and or listening to the Bach CD of which he is trying to decipher the rhythm and the intention. 

But he’s not, he is smiling at his siblings fondly and walking down the hall to where Jay is sitting on the living room couch with his feet up on the coffee table. 

“Mom’s at work,” he says without looking up from the TV screen. 

“I know,” Tyler replies. “Is there food in here somewhere?” He nods his head in the direction of the refrigerator.

Jay nods, and goes back to watching the loudly annoying show. 

Josh follows Tyler into the kitchen, where Tyler heats up some lasagna and sets it down in front of Josh on the dining table. 

“I love lasagna,” says Josh, and Tyler wonders. 

Which is his favorite dish? 

“I think I do, too,” says Tyler. He thinks that’s true. 

“This is really good,” says Josh, and Tyler nods. 

“I’ll tell my mom.” 

They eat in silence for a few seconds, and then Josh’s talkative side returns. 

“So your brothers and your sister are cool,” he says with a smirk. 

“Yeah, they are.” Tyler snorts into his food. “When they’re not betting on whether I’ve managed to make a friend or not.” 

Josh smiles. “You used to not speak that fondly of them.” 

Tyler raises his eyebrows, quietly asking Josh to elaborate. 

“When your sister called you when we were at the mall, you were annoyed. I think you’re starting to get it.” 

“Get what?” 

“That it’s not always the other people’s fault if you don’t want to like them,” says Josh, cryptically, and Tyler refrains from questioning further. It seems like Josh has said what he wants to say about that topic, and if he wants to say anything more, he will. 

“You’re little more talkative than you used to be.” Josh says suddenly, and he sounds genuinely pleased by that. 

“It always depends on the person that I’m talking to,” says Tyler, and laughs a little, which results in his sister sticking her through the door and asking if Tyler is all right and if he is choking because she heard something strange. He is very close to flashing her a swift middle finger. 

Then Zack appears again to let Tyler know that he has the evening shift today and is leaving now. 

Tyler and Josh walk up to Tyler’s room, and Josh frowns. 

“You don’t have any posters,” he states simply. 

“No, I don’t,” Tyler agrees. 

That’s that. 

“Is that Bach that you’re listening to?” asks Josh, suddenly, and Tyler nods in lack of a better reply.

“I’m trying to understand why he ignores all the scales in that one piece,” says Tyler, “It kind of freaks me out.” 

Josh smiles a little. “Maybe it doesn’t have a reason,” he says. 

“What?” Tyler asks. 

“Just like that,” says Josh, “Sometimes, there’s no reason. Maybe Bach just felt like it.” 

And Tyler simply doesn’t understand. 

Josh seems to sense that, so he tries to explain. 

“Maybe Bach was just sitting in front of his piano and he was sad and tired because his dog died or something, and then he decided to write something.” 

Tyler almost laughs at that. “But it says fucking C minor on it, so why is there almost no C minor? Why does it all fade into this weird G major thing? What the hell was going on with the guy when he wrote this?” 

Josh laughs a little. 

“Maybe there’s no reason.” 

“I don’t want to accept that.”

Josh sighs. “I know.”

And for a second, it’s as if Josh really _knows_. 

As if Josh knows what Tyler thinks of him when he tries not to sleep. As if Josh knows that every time Tyler looks at the world outside and hates it, he thinks of Josh and a smile starts spreading across his face. As if he knows that Tyler wants to hold Josh’s hand and touch him and cry on his shoulder. As if he knows that Tyler wants to feel because of Josh; that he wants to be happy because of Josh; that he wants to cry and scream and yell and laugh at the same time. 

“Because I’m your friend,” says Josh, and Tyler pushes all the thoughts aside and smiles at Josh. 

“You’re my friend,” he repeats, and Josh nods. 

Against all expectations, the afternoon goes by like in every movie; like everyone would’ve wanted it to go by. Tyler and Josh talk, and at some point, they watch TV, they take stupid pictures with Josh’s phone like the lame people that they are and then they print them out with Tyler’s ancient computer and tape them to the wall. 

They talk, and Tyler talks. He talks, he laughs, the words seem to flow naturally straight from his heart. 

At some point, Josh digs out one of his favorite albums and they listen to it. 

It’s by a band called ‘Smashing Pumpkins’, and they sound so raw. Their singer has a raspy edge to his voice and he doesn’t he sing, he yells out to the audience listening to their album. He sounds so desperate to give the world his words, and Tyler loves it. 

They’re so emotional, and Tyler wants to be that, too. 

Tyler is almost sad when Josh says that he has to leave in the evening. 

They have talked so much.

Josh makes Tyler want to talk about himself; about what moves him; about what makes him laugh. Josh makes Tyler want to make at least four deep cuts, because four is an even number, and a binary one, too. 

But when the clock strikes nine o’clock, Josh announces that it is time for him to leave. 

Downstairs, they encounter Tyler’s mother, who sits on the couch, welcoming her son and his friend with a warm, friendly smile. 

“Hi,” she says. 

“Hi, Mrs. Joseph,” says Josh, and gives her a stunning smile. 

“It’s very nice to finally meet you,” she says, “Tyler doesn’t bring home friends very often.” 

“It’s nice to meet you too.” His smile widens, even though Tyler thinks that it must be his own eyes playing tricks on him because Josh’s smile can seriously not get any happier and friendlier. “Your lasagna is great.” 

“Thanks!” Tyler’s mother exclaims. “Are your parents picking you up or do you want me to drop you off?” she adds in a motherly tone. Tyler is a little jealous. He almost never gets that tone. 

Selfish, he thinks. 

Spineless.

“Oh, it’s fine, I’ll walk,” Josh replies, quietly, almost sadly. His parents probably haven’t even noticed that he’s been gone all afternoon, Tyler thinks bitterly. He feels strangely insulted at that, even though it’s not his right to feel insulted when Josh’s parents are being stupid. There’s just this strange sense of protectiveness that has taken the place of Tyler’s indifference toward everything. 

And he realizes that he just doesn’t want Josh hurt, because Josh is important to him.

“Oh no, I insist on taking you home, it’s way too late for you to walk.” 

Tyler wants to open his mouth to tell his mother that they’re living in Ohio and not Detroit, but then he closes it again. He realizes that he doesn’t want Josh to have to endure any kind of discomfort, and then he decides that it would be better for him to be in a car since the sun has already set and who the fuck knows what can happen in the dark circles of the street light. 

And for some reason, Tyler cares very deeply about Josh’s wellbeing. He is so pumped up with emotions, he might not need to make a cut tonight. 

He might. 

He might not.

When they’ve dropped Josh off at his house, Tyler’s mother gives Tyler a warm, nice smile. A smile that makes her look ten years younger and twenty times more beautiful. 

“I’m glad that you’ve finally found someone that you get along so well with.” 

Tyler smiles. “I feel funny when he’s there.” 

She nods. “I know.” 

“Know what?” 

“That you love him,” she says, and Tyler gulps.


	16. Chapter Fifteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi! :D   
> thank you all for reading and have a nice day.   
> peace out  
> M

It’s almost cold in Tyler’s room.

Maybe it’s cold. 

He doesn’t really feel anything on his skin.

The ceiling seems to be drooping lower than usual. It’s mere inches above Tyler’s head, and it wants to devour him as a whole. He’s scared that if he blinks the ceiling will drop down and snap in half above him. He’s scared that if he blinks all the memories of Josh – along with Josh himself - will disappear, and he will be back to being his old, cold, unfeeling self. 

For some reason, he doesn’t want to go back to the time where he couldn’t feel – Josh has made him different. 

Tyler gets up at three in the morning and plugs in the headphones of his keyboard and starts jamming a simple melody that makes him think of Josh. Not necessarily because of its scales or the way that Tyler thinks that Josh’s voice sounds but because of the happy, upbeat tone with a slight edge of melancholy to it. For some reason, words seem to cross his thoughts and Tyler starts writing down some thoughts that he has and slowly, they form a rhythm, like a poem, or like…lyrics. 

The lyrics are dark, delicate…like himself. 

The music is Josh, and he’s the lyrics to the music. 

They fit. 

~

Tyler is not sure whether he likes Saturdays, to be honest. 

It’s a little strange to know that he has an entire day to himself, that he has twelve hours or more to be alone with his thoughts. Recently, Tyler has discovered that being alone with his thoughts isn’t too amazing. 

His thoughts are starting to smother him; they’re teaming up with his emotions and making him hurt very much. He can’t bring himself to be mad about that though – it’s very nice to be able to hurt, Tyler thinks. 

Somehow, when he hurts, he understands the Bach prelude better. 

When Tyler is lying on his bed, listening to the prelude yet again, he sees the lights dancing around on his ceiling and wonders whether he should go somewhere; do something. Wonders whether he should try to defeat his anxiety and walk out the front door; encounter people, things, misery. He wonders whether it would be a good idea for him to do something that makes him anxious in order to make himself less anxious.

The choice, though, is taken away from him when suddenly, something sharp and angry hits the window that parts Tyler’s world from the real world. He thinks that maybe it’s just a coincidence and tries to resume to his thoughts, but another pebble hits the glass, so he gets up and slowly looks out. 

In the shimmering light of the evening, he sees a mop of blue hair with a very bright smile standing in his yard. 

He is wearing his usual combination of dark clothes and a hat; and Tyler doesn’t ask why he always wears a hat. Maybe it has something to do with his parents thinking his hair is hideous and that boys shouldn’t dye their hair. Or them telling him that he should not be wearing hats inside. 

Josh, as Tyler has found out, quite likes to do things to spite his parents, Tyler supposes he does it because he wants them to notice his misery. 

“What are you doing here?” asks Tyler, raising his eyebrows. “We have a door, you know.” 

Josh snickers. 

“I’ve always wanted to do this,” he says. 

“All right. But it’s not prom night.” Another bright, tickly laugh from Josh. “Am I not supposed to let you climb up my hair?” Tyler adds, because he really likes to hear Josh laugh. 

“I think it would be better if you let me in through the front door. I don’t really want to die falling down here.” Josh grins. “Although it would be nice if you reanimated me.” He winks, and Tyler’s cheeks heat up for some reason.

He laughs to cover up the sudden flash of discomfort and shuts the window without another word. 

He quickly walks down the stairs, excitement gradually rushing through his blood. For some reason, it flatters him that Josh would take time out of his own life to see Tyler, even though he’s done it many times before. Tyler is still a little confused as to why Josh actually cares about him. 

“Josh is here,” he tells his mother, “Can I let him in?” 

“Sure,” she says and smiles at him. 

So Tyler quickly tears the door open, trying not to look too excited to see his friend. His façade is destroyed, though, when Josh jumps and hugs him tightly. It takes Tyler a few heartbeats to realize what Josh wants, but then he slowly raises his arms and awkwardly wraps them around the other boy’s waist because that seems like the right thing to do. Frankly, it feels nice to be that close. It makes Tyler feel warm and a little fuzzy inside his gut. Josh has a very firm chest and a very strong grip. 

“So, Ty,” he says after pulling away and throwing Tyler another one of his astonishing smiles, and Tyler raises his eyebrows instead of voicing the question, because he doesn’t really feel like talking. His throat feels a little tight and hot. 

“There’s a party at Pete’s tonight,” Josh announces, and Tyler frowns. 

“What does that have to do with me?” he asks, even though he knows exactly what it has to do with him. 

“He invited me, and I told him that I’d only come if could bring a friend,” he explains, and Tyler’s frown deepens. The crease between his eyebrows is almost a little angry as Josh laughs at his confusion. 

“You’re going to the party with me,” says Josh.

“I don’t think so,” says Tyler. 

“Oh yes, you are.” 

And that’s that.

When Josh says that Tyler has to come, he doesn’t say it like Tyler ought to get out of his room and socialize, he says it more desperately, like he physically _needs_ Tyler to go with him, and Tyler feels that something is going to happen if he lets Josh go there alone. 

Something bad. 

So Tyler decides that for the first time in his life, he won’t be selfish and that he will join Josh since he seems like he needs this, very badly. 

Tyler doesn’t bother telling Josh that it’s not a good idea to drag him off into social situations because he knows that Josh will say that he will be there for him and that he shouldn’t make a big deal out of it. 

For a few seconds, Tyler wonders where Josh’s sudden change of mind came from. 

Josh usually sits in corners and angrily talks about girls throwing themselves at boys while drunk at some random party and guys wanting just that, wanting to take advantage of their intoxicated neediness. Josh really hates parties; he hates the way that people drink alcohol to forget their problems. 

Tyler knows all these things because Josh has told him so. Josh has told him that he thinks it is stupid to drink alcohol and that he will never drink, because he doesn’t like the thought of not being able to control his thoughts and body. He has told him that he thinks people who spend their weekends drinking and doing drugs and having sex are in reality really sad, because they don’t love themselves enough to think that they deserve better. 

Tyler has never drunk before.

But he also knows the expression that Josh is wearing right now. 

He needs to do this; needs to go to that party, even if it will destroy him. 

Later in the evening, after Tyler and Josh have successfully convinced Tyler’s mother that it’s just going to be a friendly get-together with no alcoholic beverages of any kind, they’re on the way to Pete’s house. Josh looks more and more nervous with every step they take; and Tyler feels more and more nervous at the terrified look in his friend’s eyes. 

It’s just a few blocks away, and Tyler vaguely remembers Pete as the boy who used to play soccer in their garden with Zack; the boy who is now the captain of the soccer team and considering outing himself. 

Pete’s house is gigantic; his parents seem to be wealthy enough to be able to afford to leave their son alone for the weekend and stupid enough not to care whether the place   
is trashed when they return or not. 

The second Tyler and Josh walk through the door, Tyler knows that this is a bad idea. 

A strong stench that reminds him of a mixture of vomit, horny teenagers and alcohol finds its way into his nose and starts fogging his mind; starts making him a little intoxicated already. 

“This was a bad idea,” he tells Josh, and Josh nods. 

“I know, but I need to do this.” 

And when someone presses a bottle of something very sweet-looking and colorful into Josh’s hand, the night ends for Tyler. 

Josh starts drinking, and drinking, and drinking, and he doesn’t stop anymore.

He doesn’t seem to _want_ to stop. 

After a few hours of sipping from bottles and downing shots and playing silly rounds of beer pong while Tyler is always standing in the background and watching him, Josh seems a little unable to stand upright anymore, so he leaves for the bathroom, possibly to vomit, and Tyler tells him that he will not watch him do that.

But then Tyler realizes that now with Josh up in the bathroom puking his guts out, he is alone. 

Oh no. 

Panic immediately starts welling up in his throat, hot and tight and angry and purple and forcing itself out of his body and into his mind, fogging it up and pushing him to a point where he can’t think straight anymore. 

He can’t deal with this; can’t deal with the masses of sweaty people around him, can’t deal with the air of despair and alcohol clouding the room, can’t feel anything but the heat pressing against his cheeks. 

It’s too loud, too crowded, just too _much_. 

Tyler’s head feels like it’s going to explode if he doesn’t get out of here soon, but he knows that he can’t leave now; he can’t leave without Josh, and he has to stay here until Josh has sobered up enough to tell him what to do because Tyler has no idea what to do in situations like this. He has no idea who to talk to or what to talk about or how to approach them and, frankly, he doesn’t want to approach anyone – he wants to find Josh and get as far away from this place as possible. 

But he can’t, and it’s driving him insane – the way that he knows that he can’t do anything. 

He has the sudden urge to flee, but all the escape routes are blocked, so he quickly makes his way over to the kitchen, the place where masses of alcohol are stored away. It’s probably not the best of places, but it sure is better than the living room, where everyone is hot and red and sweaty and grinding against each other to what could only be described as musical pornography. 

Tyler really hates to look at this; all those people, barely sixteen, drinking their asses off in order to have fun. Is it too much to ask to actually be at one’s full intellectual and linguistic capacity and away from incontinency to have fun? Is it too much for Tyler to ask from all those people to do what the laws tell them; to _not drink_? 

Tyler doesn’t understand all this. 

“Tyler Joseph!” someone suddenly yells out, and Tyler refrains from jumping back at their hot, foul-smelling breath. He sees a very muscular body and darkly outlined eyes; it’s Pete himself. Tyler has never talked to Pete before, not even when they were kids and he was friends with Zack. “I didn’t know you’d be here.” He seems neither particularly mad nor happy about it, just plainly surprised, so Tyler feels safe enough to talk. 

“Josh dragged me here,” he says. 

“Josh Dun?” asks Pete. “The fag?” He snickers for a second. “Oh right, I forgot, you’re his new project now that he doesn’t have any friends anymore.” 

Tyler raises his eyebrows. 

“Pretty sick that he made it. Well, maybe I can score a blowjob later,” says Pete, and winks. “Some of the seniors told me that he gets very slutty when he’s drunk.” 

With that, he disappears, leaving Tyler in a sudden fit of rage and disgust.

Who does Pete think he is to talk about Josh like that? Who does he think he is talking to? And what does he think gives him the right to judge over people’s sexuality?

He can’t deal with this, can’t deal with all the closeness and all the emotions, so he does something he knows he will regret later: He takes a shot from one of the kitchen counters and downs it as fast as he can. 

It tastes utterly horrible, but he chokes down another one. 

And another one. 

Until he can’t feel his feelings anymore.

At first it’s beautiful; how perfectly numb he feels at the burning sensation trickling down his throat. The drinks hurt, but Tyler feels like this is a small price to pay to finally   
not feel anymore. 

He’s been feeling so much lately, and he is not sure whether he thinks that is a good thing or not. He’s not sure whether he wants to feel anymore. 

But then he remembers the reason why he wants to feel. 

Josh comes stumbling down the stairs, his hat backwards on his head and his eyes bloodshot and tired. He doesn’t look like the other people in the room; he doesn’t seem like he got drunk solely because he didn’t have anything better to do or like he wants to have a good time, he seems like he drank all the alcohol he drank because he wants to forget.

Tyler’s intoxicated mind wonders for a while why Josh would want to forget anything, but then he looks down at his phone, sees the date and his heart skips a few beats. 

It’s the twenty-fifth of October. 

Josh’s sister’s birthday.

After that thought though, Tyler’s memory goes a little blurry as he downs three more shots to forget about the fact that he’s forgotten that Josh is miserable.

He doesn’t really remember the rest of that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> p.s.: I'm sorry for the flopsy description, my ex has kind of turned me straight edge so I have no acual idea what being drunk feels like, and I'm not really willing to find out cause knowing my slightly addictive personality (hence the last couple chapters) I won't be able to stop drinking, and I don't really want to get into idiotic self-destuction again; been there, done that.


	17. Chapter Sixteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone!  
> I just want to thank you all again for being so supportive of this story - it really means the world to me - and let you know that we're getting close to the grande finale.  
> This fic is twenty one chapters long (yep, that one IS intended), but prologue and epilogue are not included, so it's actually twenty three chapters long.  
> And as usual, I want to thank you all so much, it's insane how much recognition this story has been getting, and guys, seriously, thanks so much.  
> I hope you really enjoy this story, and if not, maybe you can let me know what you think I could do better?  
> However, have a really nice day, even if it's a Sunday.  
> I hope this can make your Sunday a little better.  
> I love you all,  
> Peace out  
> M

Tyler wakes up feeling like something is hammering against the insides of his skull; a flat, thumping pain almost making his temples implode. He can’t feel anything but the hot white ache inside his head; and when he opens his eyes, he has to close them again immediately because the lights are too bright. 

He asks himself what the fuck was going through his head when he took that first shot and why he didn’t stop, and he asks himself where the sudden urge to drink again is coming from.

“I am so sorry,” a voice says. 

“I have no idea what I was thinking,” the voice continues, “That was the dumbest thing I’ve ever done.” 

Tyler manages to rip his eyes open and, despite the pain exploding in colorful streaks, he looks at Josh, who is sitting on the edge of the bed that Tyler is lying on, looking as horrible as Tyler feels. 

“I shouldn’t have made you come with me, I’m so sorry,” says Josh. “I shouldn’t have forced you into something that I knew would make you anxious, and I definitely shouldn’t have left you alone.” 

Tyler blinks. 

“That was so stupid of me, and I’m so sorry.” 

Tyler nods slowly, because he feels like if he speaks, his head will hurt even more.

“What happened?” he croaks out nonetheless, unable to contain his curiosity. Josh looks so guilty and sad, something must’ve happened. 

“You got absolutely shitfaced,” says Josh, and Tyler feels strange. He got drunk. He, who once swore to himself that he would never let a drug cloud his judgement, got drunk. He’s disappointed.

“And you tried to kiss me,” says Josh, and Tyler nods slowly. He vaguely remembers something like this. 

He remembers telling Josh that he thinks he is pretty. He remembers wanting to be close to him; wanting to feel the other boy’s lips against his, and he remembers acting on that urge. 

He remembers Josh not moving, just staring at Tyler. 

He remembers their lips meeting and mending together. 

His memory fades again after that. 

“We kissed,” says Tyler, and Josh nods. 

“We kissed,” he agrees. 

It takes Tyler a few seconds to process that. 

Does he think that it was a good idea to kiss Josh? Does he think it was a good idea to do it while drunk of his ass? Does he think it was a good idea to get drunk? Does he think at all anymore? 

“I didn’t want to feel anymore,” says Tyler, and Josh frowns at him.

“But you just said a couple of days ago that-“

“I know what I said,” Tyler cuts him off, “And what I did yesterday was dumb.” 

Josh nods. He looks like there is something else that he wants to say, but doesn’t quite know how to phrase it. Tyler decides that he will tell him after some times, and gets up. 

He realizes that he’s not in his own room, but in a very unfamiliar one. There are many posters one the wall and everything seems messy; so Tyler decides that this has to be Josh’s room. It’s messy, like Josh. 

“You said something yesterday,” says Josh, suddenly, and Tyler looks down at him from where he is leaning against the desk in the corner that is the furthest away from Josh. 

“Yeah?” 

“You said something about your dad.”

And just those six words are enough to make Tyler’s eyes water a little. 

Stop it. 

Crybaby. 

Pussy. 

Weak. 

“Two guys were fighting, and you said that they were doing it wrong because one of them was using his left hand to punch and muttered something about how they should learn how to throw a proper punch.” 

He remembers. 

They were fighting over something stupid, probably why one of the girls was more into one guy than the other, and because of both their intoxicated states, it had escalated and they had started throwing punches at each other. 

They seemed incredibly clumsy, and Tyler’s mouth was loose from all the alcohol, so he leaned against Josh and started whispering into his ear about how those guys were doing everything wrong.

He hadn’t realized how strange it sounded when a guy who despises violence in every form knows so much about throwing punches. 

Tyler gulps. 

Crybaby.

Weak. 

Pathetic. 

“And I asked you why you knew it, and you said something about your dad having shown you how to throw a proper punch many times.” 

Tyler can’t help it anymore, the tears are starting to spill over, coating his entire face and running down where they wet the tee-shirt that looks like someone vomited on it. He is crying so hard that his body starts shaking and he falls down to the ground where he curls up and doesn’t do anything anymore but weep; tears chasing tears and hard, heavy and moist sobs slipping out.

He barely registers Josh walking over and kneeling down next to his quivering body, reluctantly reaching out to softly rub his back until Tyler is ready to calm down a little. For some reason, Tyler feels comforted by the gesture – Josh radiates a strange kind of warmth. 

“Yeah,” says Tyler eventually. “Please don’t force me to talk about it.” 

Josh nods. “I won’t, Ty.” He bites his lip uncomfortably. “Just…you know that it’s not weak to show feelings, right? It’s weak to hide them. It’s okay for you to cry.” 

For a millisecond, Tyler considers laughing at what Josh is saying, but then he realizes he’s right – it’s cowardly hiding behind the façade of strength when in reality, the really brave thing to do would be to tell people what you think; to tell people why you don’t like how they are. All these years, his dad has been a coward – and almost made Tyler one, too. 

But Josh saved him, showed him how to feel and when to feel and suddenly, Tyler is glad that he feels now. He is glad that he walked over to Josh and comforted him when he was crying, he is glad that his sister dragged him off to the mall, he is glad that his mother likes Josh enough to trust him with her son’s life. 

He is glad that his heart starts beating manically when Josh enters a room; he is glad that he feels like his stomach is dropping down a cliff when Josh speaks, he is glad that he wants to laugh and cry and scream at the same time when Josh touches him. 

In the heat of the second, when Tyler isn’t thinking rationally, he leans forward and presses his lips against Josh’s. 

And for some reason, Josh presses back. 

Tyler has never understood why people kiss, frankly. He thinks that it looks a little weird, two people hitting their faces against each other, but now – now he gets it. 

Something inside his gut seems to explode and leave flames all over his insides, making him want more, making him want to be closer to Josh. 

They kiss for what feels like days or possibly just a second, and when they let go of each other, Tyler’s and Josh’s faces are really red. 

“Fuck,” says Josh. 

“Fuck,” Tyler agrees. 

They start laughing.


	18. Chapter Seventeen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading and have a nice day! :D   
> (also, from this point on the story is fiction.)

Tyler and Josh are perfect for each other. 

They talk every free second, and they just love each other. Josh spends every Friday over at Tyler’s house, sometimes he even sleeps over, and then Tyler meets him at his job at the mall and they talk about music until Josh’s boss, Patrick, ushers him over to his workplace. Tyler likes Patrick quite a lot, and he thinks that they could be friends. 

Everything is so good. 

Every night, Tyler makes four cuts, because four is an even number and a binary one too. The cuts make him a lot better; they make him forget about the misery around him, because he can just blend into it. On the other hand, though, he’s really not miserable at all. 

He’s actually really happy. 

He often falls asleep with Josh’s warm presence against his body and when he wakes up, he can see Josh’s horrible bed head and the goofy smile that he always wears after napping. 

A part of him, though, still feels like he shouldn’t feel this much, so he makes four cuts every night, because four is an even number and a binary one, too. Sometimes, he even takes a few sips of the vodka that his mother has stashed away in case they want to make cocktails. He feels very numb. It’s usually four sips, because four is an even number, and a binary one, too.

Tyler has found the perfect balance: He can feel while actually not feeling all that much.


	19. Chapter Eighteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone!   
> I'm also working on one of my older stories; I'm kind of going over it and making it sound nicer, so if you want to read more of my stories, maybe you want to keep your eyes open. It's not like a rewrite, but a better version of a story that I've already posted on Mibba, so if you want me to, I'll post it.   
> Back to this story, though.   
> This chapter is kind of THE chapter - I must warn you, please read with caution, this is HIGHLY triggering.   
> I'm really sorry, I promise this story gets better; I just...I feel this chapter, if that makes any sense.   
> Thank you all so much for reading, it's insane; this story is almost at 2000 hits which still completely blows my mind.   
> Thank you all; seriously, thanks so much, just thanks.   
> I hope you enjoy this chapter and if not, maybe you can let me know?

Until one Friday; Tyler takes a shower and Josh is sitting on his bed, going through Tyler’s CD shelf.

Tyler doesn’t think anything of it, not even when he walks out of the bathroom, blood stains on the towel that he has wrapped around his lower half due to having forgotten to take his jeans with him into the bathroom. 

He doesn’t really think anything of it when Josh asks him what the black box underneath Tyler’s bed is and if he can look into it. 

Then it hits him full frontal. 

But it’s too late now. 

Josh has already opened the box and peaked into it. 

Tyler knows that mere seconds have passed, but it feels like everything is dragging out to last hours upon hours. Josh looks up at Tyler, his eyes widened and slowly filling with something that could be tears of rage of sadness or happiness, and he stares at him. Just stares him down. The box drops to the floor, its contents spilling out. 

Bloody paper towels. 

Four razor blades.

Because four is an even number and a binary one, too. 

Josh’s gaze wanders down to Tyler’s towel where the blood stain is throwing itself up and down the fabric. He looks to Tyler’s leg that is peeking out from under the towel, and his breathing hitches more than once. 

“Take off that towel,” says Josh. 

Tyler doesn’t do anything, just stares at Josh, his eyes wide open and his mouth slightly agape. It’s painful to look at Josh like this. 

“Take it off,” Josh repeats, this time slightly louder. 

His voice is so harsh. 

Tyler has never heard him use that voice before, and he wonders what it means. It sounds nothing like Josh’s angry voice, it sounds like much more than that – disappointment, rage, sadness, helplessness, fright – all mixed into one tone. 

“I said,” he suddenly screams, “Put the towel down.” 

His voice bounces through the entire room, reflecting off the walls and deeply shaking through Tyler’s bones. 

And then Tyler complies, because he is scared of seeing Josh like this. 

He looks like he could smash something with just his hands. 

Josh sucks in a lot of air through his teeth when he sees the scars and the fresh cuts littering the skin, a slowly fading pattern that is forced to be strengthened with every four cuts that he makes every single day. 

Because four is an even number, and a binary one, too. 

“What the fuck,” asks Josh, “Is this supposed to be?” 

“It makes me feel,” Tyler explains in a very, very small voice. He can’t fathom a reason as to why he feels so ashamed out of a sudden, but Josh seems like he doesn’t care about it.

Josh looks like his head is going to explode with all the horrible emotions crowding it. 

Josh takes in a very long, very loud breath. He sounds like he wants to cry and yell and punch something all at the same time. “This is supposed to _help_?” he asks, voice cracking in the middle. “This,” he says, “Fucking hurting yourself.” He takes a break to regain his composure. “Is supposed to help you?” 

“Why does this make you so angry?” asks Tyler, suddenly also feeling a slight bit of anger bubbling up in the pit of his stomach. “It’s my body, not yours.” 

And that’s when Josh really blows up. 

“Who the fuck do you think you are to say something like that?” he screams. “You’re my best friend, and you forgot to mention the little detail that you cut yourself?” His face looks so angry. “This is worse than it would’ve been if it were my body!” Suddenly, all the anger vanishes, to be replaced by pure sadness. “I’m so disappointed in you, Tyler.” 

And Tyler frowns. “Why are you disappointed? Why do you care?” 

“Because you’re my friend, Tyler.” He sighs. “And I love you more than anything, and seeing you hurt is horrible.” In another sudden fit of anger, he throws his fist against a wall, shattering the picture frame with the picture of Josh pressing a light kiss to Tyler’s cheek, and then he turns back to Tyler. “Either you stop this, or I’m not going to be your friend anymore.” 

He looks at Tyler expectantly, and while Tyler thinks and ponders and tries to make up his mind about all those things that Josh is saying, Josh blows up yet again. 

“I can’t watch you do this,” says Josh, a few tears spilling out of his eyes and starting to flow down his cheeks. “I can’t watch the person that I love most in the entire world destroy himself.” 

He takes a few steps back, and when Tyler tries to follow him, tries to find a way to keep him there, to keep him from leaving, he retreats even further. 

“I’m sorry, Ty,” says Josh, and then he turns around, picks up his bag and starts running down the stairs. Tyler can hear his sobs reflecting off the walls when he starts walking after him, almost tripping over his own feet because Josh has longer legs than him and is almost out the front door and Tyler’s knees feel like they’re going to give out any second now. 

“Josh, wait!” he yells out. 

“Please!” he screams desperately, but Josh merely shakes his head and slams the front door shut behind himself. 

Tyler doesn’t follow him after that anymore, because he knows there’s no use – he can’t stop it. 

He can’t bring himself to give up the cold, beautiful sensation of the blade against his skin, he can’t give up the way that he feels everything and anything at the same time when the metal breaks his body apart. He can’t stop destroying himself. Can’t stop feeling things. 

So he has to lose Josh in order to be able to continue being able to force himself into feeling. 

He gets up from where he has sunken to the ground and walks over to the kitchen sink. It’s perfectly white, and Tyler hates it. 

His lips are too big, his nose is too flat and his upper body is not muscular enough. His legs are way too thin, they seem like they’re sticks and he hates it. He hates the way that they’re littered with scars and pain and beautiful feelings, and Tyler looks at the scars. He looks really deeply, and he thinks they’re beautiful.

He thinks the scars are something that finally make him endure the misery of the world, the cuts are something that make him immune to the people’s pains. He’s afraid that if he stops, he won’t be able to love Josh as much as he does right now, so he does the only thing that comes to mind: he does the one thing that can give Josh as much love as Tyler has inside him. 

No one is home right now; no one can hear Tyler sobbing and crying and screaming as his only way to feel healthily leaves and runs away for good; no one is there to help him up when he falls down and knocks his head on the kitchen counter. 

No one is there when he gets up, his vision still blurry, and walks over to the cabinet where his parents keep their alcohol. He takes one of the bottles and downs half of it in one go, and then he walks back over to the sink.

It’s nauseating how white the porcelain is. 

It’s nauseating how perfect it seems in contrast to the immense pain and agony surging through Tyler right now, it’s horrible how the fucking kitchen sink can stay calm when he is screaming his lungs out. 

He can barely feel anything as he makes four deep cuts, because four is an even number and a binary one, too. He can barely feel the sharp metal parting his skin as the blood starts pushing out through the wounds, coming in rapid tidal waves that overshadow the beauty of everything Tyler has ever seen. 

He sees all his life flash past his eyes. 

He sees all the disappointments, he sees his father taking off his belt and beating him with it while screaming at him to stop crying like a girl, he sees his mother loving her husband like nothing ever happened because she never knew what he did to her son, he sees his sister and brothers playing in their rooms, unknowing that their brother is being abused in the same fucking house. 

He sees all the bullies in his school, he sees the anorexic girl that he still hasn’t helped even though he’s known that she’s anorexic for a very long time, he sees the boy with the dead parents, he sees Pete with his horrible war that he’s waging against his own head, he sees all the bullies that have made other people’s lives living hell. 

And he sees Josh. 

Josh, who smiles even when he’s crying; Josh, who has made Tyler smile more times than he can count; Josh, who has finally helped Tyler figure out the damn Bach prelude; Josh, who has made Tyler feel something very strong; Josh, whom Tyler loves with his entire heart. 

He does what he knows he would have done eventually anyway; and when he sinks down against the kitchen counter, his last thought is that he’s forgotten to tell Josh how much he loves him. 

But it’s too late. 

The kitchen sink is already red.


	20. Chapter Nineteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!   
> So, apparently I upset a few people with the last chapter and I'm really, really truly sorry for that. But the reason why I didn't put Major Character Death into the warnings is because there is none - he doesn't die, this story isn't over.   
> I know it's medically incorrect, but let's just pretend that Tyler would survive this kind of thing.   
> I'm really sorry if I have cause you emotional distress, it was by no means intended, therefore please feel free to yell at me in the comments, I am truly sorry.   
> I have been a little out of it recently, I have to say, because my life has been very stressful. But summer vacation starts in another three weeks, so I will soon be able to fully focus on my stories.   
> The next one, which does not have a title yet, will be a Joshler as well, but it takes long to write because I've been really busy lately, with school majorly kicking my arse and all that.   
> Also, my ex texted me on Friday apologising to me for being an arsehole, and I'm really not sure what to make of that - but I'm drifting off yet again.   
> This chapter is very short, yet very meaningful - if you wish to talk to me in the comments about anything that has upset you in my story, please do: I do not, by any means, want anyone to misunderstand me. 'Ode to the Selfish' is in fact very sad and very triggering in some passages, but I promise you, it gets better - not better in a way where my writing gets better, but...well, Tyler gets better.   
> Excuse my mindless rambling, I'm just really confused and anxious at the moment.   
> I hope you are having a nice day or night,   
> Love you all  
> Mary

Tyler has a very strange dream that night. 

He’s in a white room, and his family is there.

They’re all looking at him adoringly, and they’re smiling so much that it must hurt their faces already, but they’re not stopping. 

And there’s his father, who keeps coming nearer and nearer until he’s standing right in front of Tyler. He takes the belt out of his dress slacks and starts beating Tyler. 

Tyler’s dream stops, and the image flashes to another one. 

In the next dream, Tyler is drinking shots of vodka; alone in his room. His eyes hurt from the massive liquid and his face and throat burn like he is swallowing fire. 

He feels numb, and for some reason, that doesn’t give him very much satisfaction. 

Then, Tyler sees himself standing in front of a mirror. 

There are cuts everywhere, on his chest, on his legs, on his arms; deeply marking his skin and making it almost unbearably ugly, or beautiful; Tyler doesn’t know anymore. 

He looks in his own eyes for a while, until he can see the shame creeping up inside them. 

He always thinks that he has to be strong, and then he does the weakest thing on earth.


	21. Chapter Twenty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading :D   
> we're almost at the end :)

The beeping noises have become almost unbearable. If this is hell, they’ve done a pretty good job, Tyler thinks. 

On the other hand, though, this bed is way too comfortable to be hell. Maybe this is heaven, after all. 

So he opens his eyes, full of hope, and looks around the room. It’s white, too white. The walls are white, the ceiling is white, the floor is white, the sheets of the bed are white, the bed itself is white. 

There’s just a careless stain of blue floating through the room, and Tyler wonders if that’s God waiting for him to wake up to tell him that he needs to go to hell, that there’s been a mistake. 

But then Tyler feels a foggy dryness in his mouth and eyes and something cold and liquid trickling into his blood through a hole in his arm, and he realizes that this isn’t heaven – nor is it hell. This is the earth; he is not dead, far from it, actually. 

“Fuck,” a distant voice says, “Please Tyler, wake up.” 

A small sob interrupts the voice. “I am so sorry for what I said, I didn’t mean it.” Tyler wants to reply that yes, he accepts the apology, he just wants to know what is going on, and where the hell is he?, but his vocal chords aren’t budging. 

“I need you,” the voice says desperately.

And that is the last thing that Tyler hears before drifting off into sleep yet again. 

It’s peaceful where he is now. 

He sees himself lying on his bed, with Josh next to him, and they’re talking about a My Chemical Romance album, and they’re feeling the album. Tyler says how he loves to write lyrics and compose on his piano, and Josh says that playing drums is one of his favorite things. 

They take the picture together that day, the one where Josh is feeling bold and presses a soft, warm kiss to Tyler’s cold cheek. Tyler blushes a little, and for a few seconds he asks himself why. 

Then he realizes, it’s because he liked what Josh just did. 

He liked how his gentle lips touched his skin ever so softly and he how he could feel Josh’s eyelashes brushing against his cheek as he shut his eyes. 

He wants Josh to do it again, so he grabs Josh’s chin, and he kisses him on the lips. 

For a few seconds, they merely lie there, lips pressed against one another, and they enjoy the warmth their bodies radiate, but then their lips start moving and a sudden adoration slips into the kiss. 

Tyler wants to tell Josh that he loves him, not only in a way where he loves spending time with him but also in a way where he wants to kiss him and hold his hand and be with him forever. 

Tyler only realizes this now, when it’s way too late. 

As if from a camera at a faraway angle, he sees a body rushing through hospital doors, oxygen mask on and at least five people gathered around the stretcher, yelling things like ‘please Tyler’ and ‘wake the fuck up’. The body is quickly moved into an OR where his stomach is pumped, and the doctor walks out soon after to tell Tyler’s mother that her son will be fine; physically. 

That’s when the memory goes black yet again, and Tyler finds himself in the strange white room again, only without the strange blue stain on the wall. 

“Tyler!” a voice suddenly screeches, and arms wrap around him, pulling his weak body against a stronger, warmer one. 

“How dare you scare us like that?” his mother asks. “What have we done to you?” 

Heat rushes into Tyler’s cheeks, and he suddenly feels very, very ashamed. 

“I’m sorry, mom,” he croaks out, “I wasn’t thinking straight.”

She looks down at him lovingly. “I know.” 

She doesn’t yell out something like ‘you could’ve said something!’ or ‘how could you do this to yourself?’, she merely sits there, holding his hand and watching her son slowly wake up and find his own consciousness again. 

“Dad beat me,” he suddenly blurts out, and his mother stares at him like he has gone mad. 

“Excuse me?” 

“He used to beat me with his belt where no one could see anything because he said that I was a crybaby and boys don’t cry,” he says. 

“That’s why I’m so weird,” he says. 

His mom looks like she is about to have a heart attack, so Tyler weakly lifts his soft arms and wraps them around her shoulders. 

“How…How come I never noticed?” 

“He was very smart about it,” says Tyler, and his mother nods slowly. 

“I’m not sure whether you’re telling the truth or not right now, but we’ll talk about all those things later.” She sighs a little. “Just tell me one thing.” 

He nods. 

“Are you going to try again?” 

That, Tyler thinks, is a very difficult question. 

Is he? 

Does he still not want to feel, not want to live? Does he still want to numb himself over and fall asleep with four cuts after four sips of vodka, because four is an even number, and a binary one, too? Does he still want to be everywhere he’s not and does he still want to go away to a place where selfishness doesn’t exist?

“No,” he says. 

No, he decides, that is the truth.

He won’t do this again. 

The dreams or hallucinations or whatever you want to call it have shown him one thing: All the problems that he has; they’re problems that can be fixed. 

And there is no feeling in the world, not a single numbing thing ever, that can keep up with the amazing butterflies that he feels for Josh. 

And there is nothing that could ever be stronger than his regret for having done such a thing to his mother. 

His mother seems pleased with that, and she lets him sleep.


	22. Chapter Twenty-One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello everyone!  
> I just rewrote the entire chapter during german lesson, so please don't be mad if there's mistakes, I'll check later.  
> This is the last chapter of this fic, except there will be an epilogue, so one more :)  
> I just want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has read this fic, but there will be a more detailed thank you note at the end of the last chapter.  
> I love you all.  
> A lot.  
> Have a nice day, okay?  
> Peace out.

When he wakes up, the blue stain is back, breaking through the whiteness of the room; forming it into a strange kind of pattern. 

Only that the blue stain isn’t a blue stain, it’s hair. 

Blue hair.

It’s Josh’s hair, and there’s Josh’s face, and there are Josh’s tears. 

“F-f-f,” Tyler croaks out, and Josh’s head shoots up. 

“Shit, Tyler!” he exclaims and almost jumps over to the bed, taking a huge leap forward, his face showing pure excitement and delight – maybe Tyler was in heaven, after all. 

“You’re awake,” Josh said, laying such loving fondness in his voice that Tyler’s heart immediately started beating irregularly. 

“What are you doing here?” asks Tyler. 

“I’m here to tell you that you’re a gigantic idiot and I kind of hate you,” said Josh, and looks down at Tyler with a strange mix of a smile and tears. 

“And that I love you.” 

Tyler hesitantly breaks into a small smirk as well, now feeling the reality of these events rush back into his veins. 

“So the ultimatum wasn’t true?” he asks, and Josh furrows his brow. 

“For the most part it was,” says Josh, “but that doesn’t mean that I don’t care about you anymore.” 

Tyler looks out of the window for a few moments, and then he looks back at Josh. His lower lip is quivering, and he doesn’t really know why. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, finally.

“For what?” asks Josh after a short moment of silence, almost bitterly, his excitement at seeing Tyler alive and well having mostly faded out into disappointment and anger yet again. He raises his eyebrows, silently demanding an explanation. 

The rage that Tyler had seen in Josh when he’d yelled on the last day, it is back now and it scares Tyler more than anything in the world. 

He thinks, for a second, that he is not afraid of Josh himself – he is afraid of losing him. 

“For making you angry.” He breathes. “For doing this to all of you.” 

Josh snorts, and now Tyler is sure, the bitterness he’d heard in his voice was not only an manifestation in his imagination. 

He pulls up his sleeve and shoves his arm in front of Tyler, and Tyler, at first, asks himself what the hell he wants and why in the world he is showing him his arm, and then he sees them. The faded white lines, crossed by more recent, angry red ones. 

“I stopped when we first met,” says Josh, and Tyler averts his gaze, ashamed. His cheeks redden, taking up a deep crimson color that not even comes close to representing the resentment Tyler feels toward himself and his actions. 

“I love you, Josh,” he says. 

And that’s when Josh suddenly becomes very, very angry again. 

“How _dare_ you tell me that you love me after doing such a thing?” he yells, his face quickly reddening. “How dare you say that you have any sort of positive emotions toward me after doing this to me, after putting me and your family through absolute hell, just because you couldn’t let go of your asshole father’s idea that you can’t fucking _cry_?” 

Tyler flinches slightly at the harshness in Josh’s words. 

“How dare you tell me that you feel anything but hate toward me after, without hesitating, doing the ultimately selfish thing; doing the one thing that I would never, ever want you to do? Choosing fucking _killing yourself_ over me?” 

Tyler’s cheeks are starting to grow even redder and pinker and all shades of anger and shame; but Josh doesn’t seem to be done yet. 

“I tried my best to help you, to make you better, to get you out of the hole that you dug yourself into,” Josh says very slowly and very dangerously, “I have done everything that I could to make you happier and less angry at the world.” 

He gulps. 

“And you responded to that by doing the most selfish thing that you could!” 

Josh snorts again; short and humorless. 

“You know, you always talk about how people are so selfish, when in reality, you’re the one who really is selfish, and a coward.” 

Josh’s words sting like little knives, but for some reason, they don’t make Tyler want to hurt himself or anyone else, they make him want to walk over to Josh and kiss away the tears that have started to run down his cheeks and hold him until he stops crying and yelling and screaming and spitting out all the rage that Tyler has caused him to harbor. 

“I want to stop,” says Tyler.

“No, you don’t just _want to_ ,” spits Josh, “You’re going to, you idiot.” 

And with that, Josh presses his lips against Tyler’s, muffling all protest and just letting the two of them enjoy the moment. 

“I have been a selfish prick, and I’m really sorry for that,” mumbles Tyler honestly, and Josh nods, his soft lips brushing Tyler’s nose slightly. 

“I understand, and I forgive you,” he says. “I hope you can forgive me too, for leaving you alone like that – maybe it wasn’t okay to just…fuck off, but I couldn’t really handle the situation. I’m sorry.” 

“It’s okay,” says Tyler, and it is. 

“Maybe you didn’t do the right thing, but I think I needed that punch in the gut,” he says, and Josh throws him a small, hesitant smile. 

“I love you Tyler,” he says, “Please don’t ever do this to me again.” 

“I love you too,” replies Tyler. 

There are many things in his life that need to be fixed. 

But right now, he might just want to start by feeling the love that Josh is giving him and holding his hand while talking to the doctor.


	23. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi everyone!  
> So.  
> This is it.  
> The great story, and how it ends.  
> I really want to take this opportunity to thank you all for reading and commenting and leaving me an insane amount of kudos - this has been one hell of a ride for me. I truly hope that this has gotten you thinking a little, and if not, at least made you want to think about these things a little. I'm sorry if I'm not making any sense, I'm kind of really tired.  
> Writing this, I realized that you need a lot of strength to be finally deciding that life must go on, and I'm gonna try to do just that: Make my life go on. It's not an easy thing to do, but I'm gonna try, and try, and try, until one day, when I will finally succeed.  
> I also want to take this opportunity to thank a few people in particular.  
> [removed paragraph]  
> Also, a big thanks to my mum and dad, who have actually read this story, which means a lot to me.  
> And the biggest thanks goes to everyone out there, everyone who feels inspired to change or give up self-destructive habits after reading this - and I'm not trying to flatter myself here, I just want you all to know that there's another way.  
> So.  
> I really, really hope you enjoyed reading my story, and leave me a comment if you didn't or did or want to tell me anything - I'm all ears.  
> Peace out,  
> M

Therapy is long and partially really horrible for Tyler. 

He has to talk to the lady about everything, about his father, about the alcohol, about the thoughts, about the cutting and about the bloody kitchen sink. 

He cries and laughs and yells and shakes and quivers a lot, but someone is always there to hold his hand; be it Josh or his mother or Madison or even Zack. 

For some reason, Tyler feels like his stupid act of selfishness has brought his family closer together, because it has opened his eyes a little more, maybe not entirely, but enough to let him know that sometimes, he has to be selfless, too. 

And even though he knows that will require a lot of working on, he’s got time. 

And he’s got Josh, who’s got patience. 

So Tyler guesses it will be fine. 

~

The river below the bridge is crashing against the walls of the canal angrily, masses of water rushing down the country and pushing itself into the ocean at some point. 

Tyler, Josh, Tyler’s mother, Maddy, Jay and Zack are leaning against the railing, their eyes directed toward the sunset far away in the future. 

“You know,” says Tyler, “I’m kind of happy all this shit happened.” 

His mother gives him a strange look, but Josh squeezes his hand to show that yes, he is still there. 

After some time, Tyler’s family leaves, saying that it has something to do with Jay’s important basketball game when in reality, they just want to give Tyler and Josh some time alone. 

The two of them have made a habit of coming out here quite often lately. 

Tyler thinks that it’s a fairly nice place to be at because you can hear your thoughts over the rushing water but they’re not loud enough to smother you. 

“Come on,” says Josh, and hands Tyler the small black box that was once stored away under his bed. 

“Throw as far as you can.” 

Tyler knows that this is a very cliché scene, but he has to say, it means a lot to him nonetheless – it’s only symbolic, of course, he can still break open another razor and take out the blades, but there’s something about throwing the blood-stained old ones away that gives him a liberating feeling. 

He has been out of the hospital for a few weeks now, and the entire school is talking about what happened to him and making fun of him for getting really drunk at Pete’s party, but to him, it doesn’t really matter. 

He doesn’t drink anymore, and he sure as hell doesn’t cut anymore, and Josh an him are official. 

Things are starting to look up for Tyler. 

Even though, one may admit, they’ve never been looking down either – just a little sideways. 

“I love you,” says Tyler, and then he throws the box with its horrible contents into the water where it is immediately torn away and ripped down into the depths of the river. 

Josh suddenly lets out a high, happy laugh. 

“You’re such a sap,” he says. 

“Come on, let’s go to Taco Bell.”


End file.
